4 killed in crash were on vacation

Woman, her brother, and children were in U.S. for family reunion

Veronica Mariel Raschiotto came to the U.S. with her brother and two young children for a family reunion in South Florida. Now all four are dead.

A high-speed driver swerved around traffic Saturday and crushed their minivan as it waited to turn off South Federal Highway in Delray Beach, only a few blocks from the vacation home they had rented, police said.

Killed were Raschiotto, 42, of Mexico; her children, Diego Martinez Raschiotto, 8, and Mia Martinez Raschiotto, 6; and Raschiotto’s brother, Jorge Claudio, 50, of Argentina.

Photographs on Veronica Raschiotto’s Facebook page show her happy with her family, including her children. It showed some of their travels, including to beach resorts. For this recent trip, the kids’ father had stayed behind in Mexico.

The other driver in the Delray crash, Paul Wilson Streater, 21, had played golf and was driving with his roommate to their apartment, said his attorney, Sam Halpern of Fort Lauderdale. Streater claimed that his pickup suddenly lurched into high speed.

“Witnesses said this vehicle was traveling at a very high rate of speed,” police spokeswoman Dani Moschella said Saturday. “It apparently encountered traffic. The driver tried to swerve to avoid that traffic, and swerved into a left turning lane.”

The crash happened about 7:20 p.m. after Streater was driving south along South Federal Highway, where the speed limit is 45 mph, police said. The family in the minivan, a white 2018 Dodge Caravan, was stopped and waiting to make a left turn east onto Lamat Avenue. The Chevrolet hit the Dodge, “basically crushing that minivan right there at impact,” Moschella said.

The pickup and minivan then traveled into the northbound lanes of South Federal Highway and collided with a Buick Encore SUV, police said.

“All three vehicles were stuck together,” Moschella said.

Delray Beach firefighters had to use a winch to pull the vehicles apart to get to the minivan, but Claudio, Raschiotto and her children were already dead,

Moschella said.

Natalia Barber and Christopher Barber, of Boca Raton, were in the Buick and had minor injuries. Streater was not injured. His passenger, Tyler Fowler, 25, of Delray Beach, was taken to Delray Medical Center for treatment of injuries that were not lifethreatening.

Streater stayed at the crash scene and was cooperating with traffic homicide investigators, Moschella said.

He is devastated by the deaths, his lawyer said.

“It’s been hard, really, just hearing the pain in my client’s voice,” Halpern said. “Listening to a 21-year-old try to wrap his head around the idea that his car, at a high speed, hit another vehicle that killed four people is just absolutely devastating to him.

“He’s at a loss to explain it, other than [the pickup] took off, and he was powerless to do anything about it,” Halpern said.

Streater’s cooperation included voluntarily giving a blood sample to investigators, Halpern said.

“He wasn’t drinking, wasn’t using drugs,” Halpern said. “And a nurse saw him immediately after the accident, who said there were no signs of impairment.”

Streater was not arrested. His condition during the crash will be part of the traffic-homicide investigation that may take several months to complete, Moschella said.

Halpern said he is investigating whether the pickup had an unintended acceleration.

“All of a sudden the truck accelerated, not too far from an intersection,” Halpern said of the crash. “And it doesn’t make sense for it to do that.”

The accelerator would be fighting against the brakes, leaving the driver unable to control the pickup, Halpern said.

A spokesman for General Motors, parent company of Chevrolet, said there have been no recalls on the Chevrolet Silverado for unintended acceleration.

The pickup’s event-data recorder should have retained basic information about the truck’s movements in the moments before the crash, said Tom Wilkinson, of General Motors.

Streater has pleaded not guilty in an open burglary case in Broward County after Fort Lauderdale police arrested him and a friend Nov. 9 in the 1900 block of North Ocean Blvd. A television, liquor, tools and sunglasses had been taken, according to an arrest report.

Streater has a clean driving history in Florida, state records show.

Delray Beach police ask anyone with any information about the crash to call Investigator Henry Lugo at 561-243-7800.

Streater