SAN DIEGO — Authorities today publicly identified eight people killed in San Diego-area traffic accidents over the initial five days of 2025, four of them on New Year’s Day.
The first two of the roadway deaths occurred late on the morning of Jan. 1, according to the county Medical Examiner’s Office. The victims, 20-year-old cousins Nadia Charles and Joseph Saint Juste Jr., were standing on the southeast corner of Buena Vista Avenue and Broadway in Lemon Grove at about 11:15 a.m. when an eastbound Acura sedan collided with a southbound Toyota car in the intersection careened onto the roadside and struck them, the agency reported.
Saint Juste died at the scene, the agency reported. Charles — who, like Saint Juste, lived with family in Lemon Grove — was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later.
A GoFundMe page supporting their family has been established at www.gofundme.com/f/support-families-of-two-lost-in-tragic-dui.
“They were beloved members of the Haitian community, including the Haitian Refugee Community Center, and were full of promise, love and life,” according to a statement on the page. “Both Nadia and Junior had survived catastrophic earthquakes, unimaginable poverty, intense violence, and political instability in Haiti.
“They journeyed over 3,000 miles to find safety in San Diego County, where their families worked tirelessly to provide them with a brighter future. Tragically, at just 19 and 20 years old, their lives were cut short by a reckless and careless driver.”
The next deadly wreck occurred shortly before 6 p.m. the same day, when a Hyundai sedan struck Marcos Perez Domingo, 45, as he was riding a bicycle at Encinitas Boulevard and Valley Park Way in Encinitas, according to the medical examiner.
Paramedics took the gravely injured Encinitas resident to Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, where he died two days later.
About a half-hour after that fatal collision occurred, 33-year-old Akash Kasibhatla, address unknown, was hit by a Toyota sedan as he was walking in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Birmingham Drive in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, the county agency reported. Kasibhatla died at the site of the accident.
The following traffic death took place on Friday. About 5:30 that morning, police officers responding to a report of a loud noise that sounded like a car crash found Joshua Summerhill, 31, in a Jeep SUV had struck a tree in a roundabout at Hospitality Point Park in the 1400 block of Quivira Way in the Mission Beach area.
Summerhill, whose community of residence remains unknown, died at the scene, the agency reported.
The final three roadway fatalities took place on Sunday. About 3:30 that morning, 29-year-old Tayden Fosness of Escondido was riding a motorcycle that crashed into a disabled Toyota sedan at the site of an earlier collision on northbound Interstate 15 near Miramar Way in San Diego.
Fosness died from his injuries before paramedics could transport him to a hospital.
That afternoon, a collision between two motorcycles on a rural roadway near Palomar Mountain claimed the final two lives lost to the series of traffic crashes.
The riders, 68-year-old Peter Mison of Fallbrook and 71-year-old Archie Slaven III of Escondido, both died at the scene of the crash, which took place on East Grade Road in Pauma Valley about 1:30 p.m., officials said.
