Police found beer cans and a fake ID inside the vehicle driven by a teenager who was killed fleeing from authorities in a violent crash that sent the engine through the second floor of a house.
The 19-year-old man, who has not yet been identified, was ejected from the 2011 Nissan Altima when it struck a 2023 Jeep Wrangler parked in a driveway at 79 N. Main St. in Belchertown on Sunday night, officials said.
Investigators found beer cans around and inside the New Hampshire man’s destroyed Altima, as well as a fake Vermont ID with the driver’s picture, MassLive reported.
An autopsy is being conducted to determine whether intoxication was a factor in the fatal wreck, authorities said.
State Police tried to stop him for speeding near Routes 9 and 202, but he took off, drove through a red light and crashed into a mulch bed on a curb, causing the car to go airborne and hitting the side of the home.
The force of the impact was so strong that the engine flew into nearby 73 N. Main St., where it slammed into the bathroom, according to the news outlet.
Miraculously, none of the people inside both homes was injured, police said.
Trevor Sims, 50, was making dinner when he heard a loud bang and his mother-in-law yelling after the engine smashed into their home, which he and his wife bought only five months ago, MassLive reported.
The mother-in-law grabbed her portable oxygen tank and a few belongings then fled from the second floor with Sims help, according to the outlet.
Sims then saw the teen’s body in nearby bushes.
“The officer thought he ran off. I heard something hit the bushes … he was just gone. He was dead on scene,” he told MassLive.
Sims said the Jeep parked near their house possibly helped the engine fly to a part of the house that was unoccupied.
“If the Jeep wasn’t there, it probably would’ve killed my mother-in-law,” he said.
Meanwhile, a building inspector has determined that the home is structurally unsound so the family was given $600 by the Red Cross to stay at a hotel, according to the outlet.
But Sims decided to sleep in his car to prevent possible looters from trying to enter the home — and also to make sure the cats he couldn’t initially locate didn’t escape through the gaping holes.
He said he eventually found all three of his cats.
Sims’ wife, Donna, 49, said she rushed home from work when he called her about the incident.
“I was horrified walking up the hill, because I saw these two giant holes in the house,” she told MassLive, adding that she was grateful their 21-year-old son wasn’t home at the time.
She said the force of the impact caused all of his belongings to fly across his bedroom on the other side of the second-floor hole.
On the first floor, which also has a gaping hole, Donna said she kept her deceased father’s Stephen King book collection, which was damaged in the crash.
“I kept the collection going after he passed away. Every time Stephen King came out with a book, I bought it. I never read any of them. I don’t even like Stephen King,” she told the outlet.
A friend has launched a GoFundMe page to help the family.
“It will take time for their insurance to assess the damage and issue payments and they pray that all of the repairs needed will be covered and that their home will not be deemed a total loss,” Seána Justine wrote in the fundraiser.
Donna, who has two other sons, put things into perspective.
“The house can be replaced, you can’t replace him. Nineteen — he was just starting his life,” she said about the dead driver.