The anguished family of a Long Island woman killed in a car accident is appealing to the public for help – desperate to know if she died because someone deliberately put an orange traffic cone in the middle of a dark road on a wet night.
Saleswoman Mary Taggart, 51, of Wading River was killed on the foggy night of April 19 when the driver of the car in which she was riding swerved to avoid the cone and lost control.
The vehicle crashed into a telephone pole near the East Wind Caterers on Route 25A in Wading River, where a wedding was in progress. Taggart was killed instantly.
After the accident, the plastic cone was put back in a driveway, where it had been previously, said Riverhead Police Detective George Fredricks.
He said he hoped guests smoking on the porch of the catering hall might have seen who put the cone in the roadway.
The victim’s grieving brother, Vincent Taggart, appealed to the public for help in his search for the truth about the crash.
Fredricks asked anyone with information on the accident to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 220-TIPS. There is a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information that leads to an arrest.