A man arrested in connection with a car crash that killed a rabbinical college student, his pregnant wife and their baby in New York this month has been indicted on three counts of second-degree manslaughter, authorities announced Tuesday.

The man, Julio Acevedo, 44, previously was charged with leaving the scene of an accident without reporting it. A Kings County grand jury added the manslaughter charges for the deaths of Nachman and Raizy Glauber, both 21, and their baby boy, who was delivered after the accident by cesarean section, but died the next day. The mother was seven months pregnant.

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Acevedo is accused of driving the BMW that speeded down a Brooklyn street at 69 mph — more than twice the speed limit — early March 3 and crashing into a livery cab carrying the Glaubers, who were on their way to a hospital. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

The crash crumpled the cab and threw Raizy Glauber from the wreck. The engine ended up in the back seat. The driver of the livery cab was knocked unconscious but wasn't seriously hurt.

Acevedo served a prison term in the 1990s for manslaughter after he was convicted of shooting Kelvin Martin, a Brooklyn criminal whose moniker "50 Cent" was the inspiration for rapper Curtis Jackson's stage name.

How he came to possess the BMW is under investigation, NBC News reported this month. The owner of the car was arrested on insurance fraud charges related to the vehicle, but that case has been deferred.

Acevedo's attorney, Kathleen Julian, told the New York Post: "I fully expected him to be indicted."

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A young couple en route to a hospital to have their first child was killed in a car crash in New York City early Sunday but the baby was born at the scene and survived.

Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21 and Orthodox Jews, were using a car service to go to the hospital when another vehicle crashed into the side of theirs at an intersection in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, Hasidic community activist and family friend Isaac Abraham said.

Nathan Glauber was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital, while his wife died at Bellevue, the New York Post and The Associated Press reported.

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Pictures of the scene were posted on Vos Iz Neias, a news site that covers the Jewish community.

The couple's son was delivered at the scene and was taken to a hospital in serious condition, said Abraham, who is also a neighbor of Raizy Glauber's parents and lives two blocks from the scene of the crash.

Abraham said: "The child is in a serious condition in Beth Israel Hospital, in Manhattan. Now we just pray with the child that all medical efforts keep him alive."

PhotoBlog: Victims caskets at their funeral

He added: "I know Raizy because I saw her grow up from a child."

The driver of the vehicle that hit the couple's car fled, police told the AP. No arrests have yet been made.

The Post reported that a BMW was involved and that it was the driver of the BMW who fled the scene, at the intersection of Kent Avenue and Wilson Street.

The condition of the car service's driver is unclear, police said, according to the AP.

Alastair Jamieson,  NBC News, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 3, 2013 6:06 AM EST

 

Updated at 6:45 p.m. ET: The father of a young woman who was shot along with her girlfriend last week in a South Texas park is mourning the loss of his “guardian angel,” telling a local television station that “justice will be served” in the case.

Mario Olgin’s daughter, Mollie, 19, and her girlfriend, Mary Kristene Chapa, were found in a grassy area of the park by a couple Saturday morning with gunshot wounds to the head, Portland, Texas, Police Chief Randy Wright has said. Olgin, originally from nearby Ingleside but recently living in Corpus Christi, died; Chapa, of Sinton, was rushed to an area hospital where she is making an “amazing” recovery in the intensive care unit, her brother told NBC Latino.

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The couple had planned to spend some time in the park before going to see a movie, Olgin told kiiitv.com on Tuesday. When his daughter, a first-year college student who wanted to become a psychologist, didn’t show up for work on Saturday, Olgin said he knew something was wrong.

“It was not like Mollie. … If she had some place to be she was going to be there,” he said. “I immediately had bad feelings (about) it.”

Wright said police had recovered a bullet casing from a large-caliber gun at the scene, leading investigators to believe the shootings occurred where the pair was found, but they haven’t found the weapon. Two witnesses said they heard what could have been gunshots or firecrackers just before midnight last Friday but did not report it at the time, he said.

A motive had not been established, he said in the statement.

"Information from family and friends indicates that Mollie and Mary were engaged in a same-sex relationship. However, there is no current evidence to indicate the attacks were motivated by that relationship," he said.

Wright told msnbc.com on Monday that: “It appears as if … this was not just a random attack but that’s something that we really have to develop over time.”

Because of her medical condition, Chapa has not been formally interviewed about what happened, he said.

Chapa’s brother, Hilario, said that his sister was making physical progress on the right side of her body but doctors were awaiting a response from the left. She was able to communicate via sign language.

“The doctors say it’s too early, no one is using the word ‘paralyzed,’” he told NBC Latino. “They say we should be so happy with her progress after three or four days. She’s very strong. She survived a very tough ordeal but her recovery is coming in strides and  impressing everybody.”

He was hesitant to share many details about the search for a suspect.

“We don’t know who did this to her, she hasn’t given us a name,” he said. “We’re under the impression she doesn’t know who did it. We don’t know if it’s a hate crime.”

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park
Friends reel from shooting of teen lesbian couple in Texas

The Texas Rangers have joined the investigation, which is being led by the Portland Police.

“We offered our assistance and they accepted and we have been actively involved in the investigation since Sunday," Tom Vinger, spokesman for Texas Department of Public Safety, wrote to msnbc.com in an email.

The park, a nature area with some parts overgrown and no lights, was often frequented by visitors during the day, but not at night. It is located along a bluff overlooking a bay, Wright said, with some homes situated nearby.

“We’re not really sure how they got to the point that they were found,” he said. “It is a scenic overlook with a wooden deck and there is a place at the edge of the deck where you can actually go down a very steep incline into a grassy area that leads down to the shoreline, and that’s where they were found.”

The crime rate is low in Portland, north of Corpus Christi on the Gulf of Mexico, Wright said. The last homicide occurred two years ago.

The couple’s friends and well-wishers placed rainbow ribbons, goodbye messages, flowers and cut-out hearts on Sunday around the site where Olgin and Chapa were found. On Friday, a candlelight vigil and walk will be held for them.

Frank Reyna, a 19-year-old university student, said he grew up with Chapa and met Olgin his sophomore year of high school. He described Chapa as an athlete who played softball, and said Olgin, a student at a nearby university, was focused on academics but also was a big joker. He last saw them together at a local coffee shop in May, which was the first time he saw them out as a couple.

“It’s something that I think all of us are going to carry with us for a while,” Reyna told msnbc.com. “It’s going to take a while to get past this, the idea that there is somebody still out there that did this to these two amazing, beautiful people, and that they’re walking free right now.”

Friends said the pair had been together since mid-February.

The couple’s relationship “was a readily accepted thing,” Reyna added, and was not what their friends focused on.

“We focused on their personalities and how they got along with everybody else … their kindheartedness and their ability to just make other people smile and make each other smile,” he said. “We didn’t care … what they were, it’s who they were.”

Jillian Manuel, 20, who used to work with Olgin, said it was hard to return to the park on the weekend knowing what had happened there. She went to help create the makeshift memorial, where friends shared stories and tears, and to check the scene, where she recalled the difficulty of watching Olgin’s car get towed.

“We’re … hoping to kind of just remember Molly, remember her and just share our memories,” Manuel said of their planned vigil. “And then … send off prayers for Christine and just celebrate them.”

The family will hold a memorial on Friday before the candlelight vigil and walk. Olgin welcomed the outpouring of support in the wake of his daughter’s death.

“She was happy,” he told kiiitv.com. “She didn’t need for her life to end the way it did. Justice will be served.”

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Friends and family of two teenage girls in a same-sex relationship who were shot in the head in a South Texas park expressed shock and grief Tuesday over the incident in which one of the young women was killed and the other severely injured.

Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Kristene Chapa, 18, were found in knee-deep grass in a nature area in Portland by a couple Saturday morning, said Portland Police Chief Randy Wright, who confirmed to msnbc.com details first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller Times.

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Rainbow ribbons, goodbye messages, flowers and cut-out hearts were posted around the site where they were found. On Friday, a candlelight vigil and walk will be held for Chapa and Olgin.

“It’s something that I think all of us are going to carry with us for a while,” Frank Reyna, a friend of both girls, told msnbc.com. “It’s going to take a while to get past this, the idea that there is somebody still out there that did this to these two amazing, beautiful people, and that they’re walking free right now.”

Olgin, originally from Ingleside but recently living in Corpus Christi, died; Chapa, of Sinton, was rushed to an area hospital where she was in stable condition, Wright said Tuesday in a statement.

Wright said police had recovered a bullet casing from a large-caliber gun at the scene -- leading investigators to believe the shootings occurred where the pair was found -- but they haven’t found the weapon. Two witnesses said they heard what could have been gunshots or firecrackers just before midnight last Friday but did not report it, he said.

“If we had a name, you know, we’d be having a different conversation right now. But we have not been able to gather enough information to identify a suspect yet,” Wright told msnbc.com on Monday. “It appears as if … this was not just a random attack but that’s something that we really have to develop over time.”

A motive had not been established, he said in the statement.

"Information from family and friends indicates that Mollie and Mary were engaged in a same-sex relationship. However, there is no current evidence to indicate the attacks were motivated by that relationship," he said.

Teen lesbian couple found shot in Texas park

Chandler Nunez, who noted that Olgin was one of her best friends in high school, said she was in shock.

“ … I cannot imagine anyone who would want to hurt such a loving and caring person,” she wrote to msnbc.com. “This was incredibly unexpected and the lack of answers makes this tragedy all the more frustrating.”

Friends said the pair had been together since mid-February.

Reyna, a 19-year-old university student, said he grew up with Chapa, and met Olgin his sophomore year of high school. He described Chapa as an athlete who played softball, and said Olgin, a student at a nearby university, was focused on academics but also was a big joker. He last saw them together at a local coffee shop in May, which was the first time he saw them out as a couple.

“I’m glad that that was the last time that I saw Mollie in person, that that’s the memory that I can live with for the rest of my life, knowing that I saw her happy,” he said.

The couple’s relationship “was a readily accepted thing,” he added, and was not what their friends focused on.

“We focused on their personalities and how they got along with everybody else … their kindheartedness and their ability to just make other people smile and make each other smile,” he said. “We didn’t care … what they were, it’s who they were.”

Wright said Monday that all indications were that “third parties” were involved in the assault. Because of her medical condition, Chapa has not been formally interviewed about what happened, he said.

The park, more of a nature area with some parts overgrown and no lights, was often frequented by visitors during the day, but not at night. It is located along a bluff overlooking a bay, Wright said, with some homes situated nearby.

“We’re not really sure how they got to the point that they were found,” he said. “It is a scenic overlook with a wooden deck and there is a place at the edge of the deck where you can actually go down a very steep incline into a grassy area that leads down to the shoreline, and that’s where they were found.”

The crime rate is low in Portland, north of Corpus Christi on the Gulf of Mexico, Wright said. The last homicide occurred two years ago.

While people in the South Texas community prepare for their memorial service, another candlelight vigil for the pair has been organized by Cleve Jones, a gay civil rights activist who conceived the AIDS Memorial Quilt, for Wednesday evening in San Francisco. On Facebook, people noted they would hold vigils in other cities, too.

"You were taken too soon," Megan Olgin, who identified herself as Olgin’s sister on Facebook, wrote in a post. "I love you and always will. You're my guardian angel. I love you little sister. Forever and always ♥"

Editor's note: The Portland Police had initially spelled Chapa's name as Christine, though her friends spelled it Kristene. The police department's latest press release Tuesday evening has changed the spelling to Kristene.

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Two teenage girls in a relationship were found with gunshot wounds to the head in a south Texas park, with one of them dying from her injuries, media reports say. Police were searching for their assailants.

Mollie Judith Olgin, 19, and Mary Christine Chapa, 18, were found in knee-deep grass in a nature area in Portland by a couple Saturday, said Portland Police Chief Randy Wright, who confirmed to msnbc.com details first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller Times.

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Olgin, originally from Ingleside but recently living in Corpus Christi, died; Chapa, of Sinton, was rushed to a hospital where she had surgery and was in serious but stable condition on Sunday, local NBC affiliate kristv.com reported. Wright said Chapa was still in the hospital on Monday.

Friends told kristv.com that the girls had been together five months. Wright said he didn’t have any information about their relationship, noting that “we understood from their friends that they were (in a romantic relationship). I know from … Mollie’s parents that they were very close.”

When asked if police had been able to determine if the girls' sexuality played any role in the shootings, Wright told msnbc.com: “That’s always something that we’re looking for, but as of this point, we have not been able to establish that that had anything to do with the attack.”

He said they had been in communication with Chapa. He noted all indications were that “third parties” were involved in the assault.

“If we had a name, you know, we’d be having a different conversation right now. But we have not been able to gather enough information to identify a suspect yet,” he said. “It appears as if … this was not just a random attack but that’s something that we really have to develop over time.”

Wright said police had recovered a bullet casing from a large-caliber gun at the scene, but they haven’t found the weapon. A resident living nearby reported hearing two loud bangs Friday before midnight but believed they were from firecrackers, the newspaper said.

The park, more of nature area with some parts overgrown and no lights, was generally frequented by visitors during the day. It is located along a bluff overlooking a bay, Wright said, with some homes situated nearby.

“We’re not really sure how they got to the point that they were found,” he said of the girls. “It is a scenic overlook with a wooden deck and there is a place at the edge of the deck where you can actually go down a very steep incline into a grassy area that leads down to the shoreline and that’s where they found.”

Friends of the girls gathered at a local high school on Sunday. Olgin's roommate, Samantha Garrett, told kristv.com that the fun-loving couple hadn’t gotten any negative responses to their relationship and could not think of why anyone would want to harm them.

The crime rate is low in Portland, a bedroom community of Corpus Christi on the Gulf of Mexico, Wright said. The last homicide occurred two years ago.

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