16-year-old driver in fiery crash that killed 5 children in New York wasn't licensed

Five children ages 8 to 17 who died  in a fiery crash in New York were in an SUV driven by a 16-year-old who did not have a driver's license or permit, officials said Monday.

The car veered off the Hutchinson River Parkway and struck a boulder and then a tree before catching fire at 12:20 a.m. Sunday, Westchester County Executive George Latimer said at a news conference. Speed does not appear to have been a factor, he said.

"We grieve with the families that are involved," Latimer said at the conference with Acting Public Safety Commissioner Terrance Raynor. "To lose a child at age 17, 16, 12, 11, 8 – these are individuals who had their whole life ahead of them."

The victims were from Derby, Connecticut, and were identified as driver Malik Smith, 16; Anthony Billips Jr., 17; Zahnyiah Cross, 12; Shawnell Cross, 11; and Andrew Billips, 8. They included two sets of siblings, Latimer said.

The lone survivor, 9-year-old Abraham Billips, was taken to Westchester Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries. He had apparently been riding in a rear cargo area of the 2021 Nissan Rogue and escaped out a rear broken window with the help of a police officer who was the first to arrive and found the vehicle in flames.

Deadly wreck: Five children killed in fiery crash in New York; lone survivor is 9 years old

“He’s just seen five members of his family die. This has got to be an impossible situation for him as a young boy. So the kind of questions that you or I would want to ask him to know these things probably isn’t appropriate until things have been stabilized,” Latimer said.

No other vehicles were involved in the crash.

Officials at Monday's news conference said the driver may have been distracted or fallen asleep, but that hasn't been determined.

The vehicle was rented by a relative, Latimer said, and part of the investigation is how the 16-year-old driver had access to it.

“We’re less concerned at this point about who to blame but to understand exactly what happened,” Latimer said.

Family had just moved to Connecticut

Raynor said the investigation is not “criminal in nature.”

“As you can imagine, this family is very distraught over the incident and we have had some conversations," he said. "They’ve been cooperative with respect to the questions we’ve asked. However, there is a lot more to go into this investigation.”

The driver's family may have just relocated to Connecticut from New York City very recently, and the children may have been driving from New Jersey to Derby when they crashed, Latimer said.

Derby is a city with a population of more than 12,000 roughly 10 miles west of New Haven.

The school superintendent in Derby said Sunday that he learned the children had recently moved to the area from New York but had not enrolled in the district.  Superintendent Matt Conway said he reached out to a father and offered information about support in the community for him and his family.

“It’s the unimaginable," Conway said, according to the AP. "Having to now make arrangements for five of your children to be buried is a very difficult thing for anyone – one child, never mind five that you’re going to have to now make arrangements for.”

Contributing: Staff reporter Asher Stockler and The Associated Press

Michael P. McKinney is a breaking-news reporter for The Journal News, Poughkeepsie Journal and Times Herald-Record of Middletown.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Teen driver in New York crash that killed 5 children had no license