Heart-breaking new details are emerging about a Friday night crash that killed five people, including two children, in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Among the victims were two D.C. sisters, 32-year-old Typhani Wilkerson and 34-year-old Tameika Curtis, who leave behind 10 children between them.
Wilkerson had two toddlers; Curtis was a mother of eight, the youngest just six weeks old. Their family spoke to News4 in the wake of tragic crash.
"We're talking about 10 kids without mothers," said family member Lloyd Hardy. "Ten. I mean, that's absolutely devastating."
The women had just done the kids' laundry and picked up a carpet cleaner from Home Depot before heading toward their homes in Southeast D.C., travelling in an Acura driven by Dossa Boykin, a close family friend.
Prince George's County Police say a preliminary investigation indicates that the Acura was stopped at a traffic light around 9:40 p.m. at the intersection of Livingston Road and Livingston Terrace when a Mercedes slammed into their car.
"They were killed pretty much doing their motherly duties," said Hardy, the father of Curtis' teenagers.
Of the five people inside the Acura, only the driver survived. Her two children, 1-year-old Hassan Boykin and 13-year-old Khadiua Ba, were rushed to a hospital, but died of their injuries. Dossa Boykin was released from the hospital Monday to bury her children this week.
"I just felt like I was in a nightmare," Dossa Boykin said. "I wish I would have died too. My daughter was in the backseat, singing some silly song. We were all laughing. Next thing I know, I saw cracks in the windshield. We never knew what hit us."
A female passenger in the Mercedes, 21-year-old Dominique Green, was also killed in the crash. The male driver of the Mercedes is in critical condition. The other passenger, who is male, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
"If he was driving like he should have been, this wouldn't have happened," Green's sister Keaunia Glascoe said.
Green's family reported her missing Sunday evening, and hours later, found out she died in Friday's crash.
"About 8 o'clock [Sunday] they knocked on our door and said it was her. They found her ID and they matched her tattoos," Glascoe said.
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"It shouldn't have been her," Green's cousin Chemica Jones said. "I feel sorry for the other victims."
Relatives of Curtis and Wilkerson said the sisters had agreed to take care of each other's kids if anything ever happened to one of them.
"Nobody ever thought, you know, what happens if they both go at the same time?" said Hardy, the father of Curtis' oldest two children, who are teenagers. "Something like that was inconceivable. There was no plan for that."
Hardy choked up talking about the crash, saying his daughter can hardly stand to look in the mirror right now -- "because she looks so much like her mom."
The family is trying to keep the children's minds off the horrendous losses as they plan funerals for the moms, and try to map out new futures for the 10 kids.
Police said speed and the weather may have been factors in the deadly crash.
A roadside memorial sprang up over the weekend, set up by strangers saddened by the accident's deadly toll. Among the offerings: flowers, and a copy of "The Cat in the Hat."
A D.C. funeral home will be pitching in to help arrange the funeral for Typhani Wilkerson and Tameika Curtis.
"What we've decided to do is donate a large portion of our services and time to the family to accomodate them and assist them in their arrangements and also give their loved ones a decent burial with dignity and respect," Shaun A. Reid with Shaun A. Reid Funeral Services in Northwest said.
