Car crash into Holbrook house kills woman
20-year-old from Stoughton was passenger in her own car
HOLBROOK — A closeknit Stoughton family is struggling to understand how a vibrant 20-year-old woman was killed early yesterday when the car she was riding in plowed through a house in Holbrook, 6 miles from home.
“She was a great kid,” Larry McInnis, the stepfather of Nicole Ricci, said, his voice strained. “Never a problem. Never in trouble. She was a doll.”
McInnis, 55, said his stepdaughter, a 2016 graduate of Holbrook High School, worked for a garage door company in Braintree.
Ricci, who would have celebrated her 21st birthday New Year’s Eve, was a passenger in her own 2005 Toyota Camry when authorities said it swerved from the westbound lane of Route 139 shortly before 5 a.m., struck a utility pole, sliced through a fence and slammed into a four-bedroom ranch on Kingsley Street.
No one was harmed inside the residence; however, two men in the car with Ricci were injured. They were expected to survive, said David Traub, spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey.
Skid marks seared into the pavement and across a lawn mapped out the fatal path.
No charges had been announced as of last night.
Ricci’s survivors include her parents, Sharon McInnis and Anthony Ricci, and three brothers.
“She was that type of person. … Everybody liked her,” said Yves Saget, who was a junior when Ricci graduat- ed. “I’ve been nonstop crying. I don’t know why. I just know she was a nice girl.”
Saget visited Kingsley Street last night to light candles in honor of his former classmate.
“It’s Holbrook. It’s a small town,” he said. “When you turn left, you turn right, you know the person. So, you always show love.”
Ricci’s uncle George Paluzzi said, “This is horrible for us. Horrible. This family’s so tight, so close. All the cousins act like they’re sisters and brothers. No one is ever left out. It’s amazing.
“Our luck was very good for a long time and now it’s caught up with us,” he said, wistfully. “Now, we’re one of those families you read about.”