4 killed in rear-end crash were here on vacation
Jorge Claudio Raschiotto of Argentina, his sister and her children died Saturday on Federal Highway.
DELRAY BEACH — Police on Monday identified the members of the family here on vacation who were killed Saturday night when a speeding pickup slammed into the back of their van.
Jorge Claudio Raschiotto, 50, of Argentina, his sister, 42-yearold Veronica Raschiotto of Mexico, and her two children, Diego Martinez Raschiotto, 8, and Mia Martinez Raschiotto, 6, were dead by the time rescue crews reached them in their crushed minivan.
A Chevy Silverado slammed into the back of the family’s 2018 Dodge Caravan at “a very high rate of speed” shortly before 7:30 p.m. Saturday on South Federal Highway south of Linton Boulevard, police said.
Witnesses estimated the pickup, driven by 21-year-old Paul Wilson Streater, was going about 100 mph when it swerved to avoid
traffic ahead of it and rearended the minivan waiting to turn east into the Tropic Isle community on LaMat Avenue. Police said the family spent the day in Deerfield Beach and was returning to the home they rented on Florida Boulevard.
The truck and the van crossed the median into the northbound lanes and collided with a Buick Encore. The totaled van became stuck between the truck and the Encore.
Delray Beach Fire Rescue authorities had to separate the vehicles before they could reach the four people inside the van. All were pronounced dead at the scene.
Streater’s passenger, 25-year-old Tyler Fowler of Delray Beach, said on Face- book on Monday that the vehicle’s gas pedal “was stuck wide open. It all happened so fast.”
Fowler was taken to Delray Medical Center with nonlife threatening injuries. His post said they included broken bones in his face, a fractured clavicle and bruised lungs.
“I was in a tragic car crash last night and I’m lucky to have been spared a second chance at life,” Fowler wrote.
The two people in the Buick Encore, Natalia Bar- ber and Christopher Bar- ber of Boca Raton, sustained minor injuries, Delray Beach police said.
Streater is cooperating with the police investigation and was released from custody. Police stressed that the investigation is still active and arrests in the case, if any are made, wouldn’t come until the investigation is complete.
Streater’s attorney, Samuel Halpern, told The Palm Beach Post that his client was not drinking and was not on drugs at the time of the crash. He allowed investigators to take his blood and is cooperating with police.
Police allowed Streater to go home after the wreck. He was in the truck with his roommate, Halpern said.
Streater is in a pretrial diversion program that the Broward County state attorney offered in a burglary case from November. He was arrested on a third-de- gree felony and pleaded not guilty to reportedly stealing a television, containers of liquor in a cooler, tools and sunglasses with another per- son, records state.
Halpern said that diversion program is one year long. The Broward County state attorney can decide to dismiss the case once Streater completes the program.
The Raschiotto family declined to comment about the crash. However, a friend told The Post that Jorge Claudio Raschiotto was a director at the San Isidro Delta School in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Joanne Viscondi, who lives in a two-story condo complex across Florida Boulevard from where the family had been staying, said as she walked her chihuahua that she had seen the family moving in just last week.
“I just kind of looked and smiled and said, ‘Hi,’ ” she said.
“They seemed like such a nice family,” Viscondi said. “And they finally got settled. And that’s what’s so sad. She finally got the house the way she wanted it.”
Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact Delray Beach investigator Henry Lugo at 561243-7800.