From new wife to widow
Unimaginable heartbreak as cop dies in wreck just hours after getting married
SHE WENT from wife to widow in a matter of hours.
On Sunday, Katherine Berger, a registered nurse from South Huntington, L.I., gave her hand in marriage to NYPD Officer Michael Colangelo in a rustic open-air ceremony in the Catskills.
But instead of a dream honeymoon in Costa Rica, the 32-year-old Berger is planning her husband’s funeral after a postnuptial joyride turned deadly. Following the ceremony, held at the Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, Ulster County, Detective John Martinez, 39, a colleague of Colangelo’s in Brooklyn’s 84th Precinct, had a special treat.
About 11:20 p.m., the two men, who both worked in the NYPD’s special operations division, jumped in Martinez’s rented 2018 Maserati, with a 28-year-old unidentified passenger in the back. The hot rod pulled out of the resort onto Oliverea Road, and never came back.
New York State Police believe that the roadster was speeding when it left the dark and winding roadway in Shandaken, 3 miles from the wedding venue, smashed into a tree, flipped and slid to a stop.
Martinez and Colangelo, 31, were both found dead at the scene. The third man in the car was taken to Albany Medical Center and was expected to survive.
The speed limit on the country road was 40 mph.
“We do believe that the vehicle was traveling in excess of that speed,” a state police spokesman said.
Authorities don’t know if alcohol was a factor in the crash and the investigation is ongoing, state police said.
A social media post shows Berger and Colangelo at the Mohonk Preserve, not far from their wedding site. They’re standing side by side on a rocky outcropping — her in a flowing halter-top dress, him in shorts and a button-down oxford shirt.
Another shot shows the two together on her graduation day.
The couple had planned to go to Costa Rica for their honeymoon and asked pals to help fund the trip.
“We know it’s not traditional but it would be a lot of fun, to have some items on our wedding list that will help us catch some sun!” they wrote on honeyfund.com.
“So if you’d like to give a gift to send us on our way, a donation to our honeymoon would really make our day!”
Berger, a nurse at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, L.I., was a whirl of activity in the weeks leading up to the nuptials.
“She was really excited. My heart breaks for her,” a neighbor, who declined to be named, said, drying tears. “I can’t imagine how she’s going to get through this. I saw her just a few days ago, before they went upstate. She was so happy. It’s just very sad. It’s a young couple. It is unreal.”
This was his second marriage, her first.
“She waited so long for this to happen,” neighbor Chuck Weindorf, 85, said of the wedding. “It was very disturbing,” said fellow Mercy nurse Evelyn Morales, who couldn’t attend the wedding because of work. “She’s very well-regarded.”
Heartbroken South Huntington neighbors also grieved for Colangelo.
“I got to chat with him about how happy he was and that everything was going right, because he was going to get married this past weekend,” said Weindorf, a retired Nassau County cop.
“He was having a barn-type wedding. I saw him in the garage preparing for some of the props that will be used in the wedding. They were planning this for a while now. This was a big occasion. “It’s just a tragic deal. On his wedding night he got killed.”
Neighbors said Colangelo moved into the South Huntington house a couple of years ago and did a lot of work on the house. His betrothed and K-9 pal, Jimbo, a German shepherd, joined him more recently.
“I’m sure they are gonna miss him in the department,” Weindorf said. “He just got the dog. He trained him for explosives (detection). He wanted to do that until he retired. He had everything he looked forward to.
“He was kind, considerate. He had all the credentials of a good person,” he added. “When he bought the house, it was in shambles. He did a lot, a lot of money and a lot of time.”
Other neighbors shook their heads in shock walking by the gray one-story home adorned with an American flag on quiet Oaktree Lane.
Jimmy DeAngelo, 74, tried to comprehend the tragedy. He said both Colangelo and Berger were well-liked in the idyllic neighborhood.
“The car flipped. He died,” DeAngelo told his wife. “His life was just getting started. It’s just terrible. They had just gotten married.”
Dianne Rapccyk said Colangelo was known for his dedication to his home and dog.
“My son is a police officer, so this hurts,” said the mom of a Suffolk County cop. “They are people, too. They go out and accidents happen.”
She said she saw Colangelo frequently while walking her yellow Labrador retriever.
“I congratulated him when he got the home. I’d see him a lot because we both have dogs,” she said.
The accident was the second double tragedy to hit the 84th Precinct. Martinez worked with Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, who were killed in an ambush in 2014.