Speed, booze eyed in fatal D.R. crash

A deadly combination of speeding, alcohol and a dangerously dark roadway may have contributed to the fatal accident in the Dominican Republic involving New York tourists Portia Ravenelle and Orlando Moore.

National Police commander Frank Félix Duran Mejía said Moore, 43, had been seen drinking before he and Ravenelle left their hotel in Samaná to drive to the airport and fly home from their idyllic four-day vacation March 27, El Diario reported.

Mejia said authorities believe the Mount Vernon couple may have been speeding to get to the airport, and may have made a wrong turn and changed course when the car went out of control around 2 a.m. on a dark road and plunged into the Caribbean Sea, the news outlet reported.

The rental car was last seen on surveillance video going through a tollbooth a third of mile from the Las Americas highway, which leads to the airport, the National Police have said. Ravenelle, 32, escaped from the accident and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died April 4. El Diario reported she had no ID and was unconscious when she was brought to the hospital, and was not able to speak before her death and was identified by through her fingerprints.

Moore’s decomposed body was found in the sea, near Sans Souci.

The couple’s rental car was pulled from the water Friday.

New York Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Eliot Engel wrote FBI Director Christopher Wray last week requesting the agency “work quickly to conduct a thorough investigation regarding details of their reported deaths that raise questions for us.”