It was around lunchtime Tuesday when Shareka Daley's world changed.
"She was at my house yesterday," Daley said.
Her 1-year-old niece Anaya is now gone.
You can barely tell that the vehicle used to be a Nissan Altima. Anaya had been inside, strapped in her car seat. Her dad was at the wheel and his brother beside him.
"It was a horrific crash and it's just a tragedy that such a young child had to lose her life," said Investigator Joseph Becerra, New York State Police.
Troopers say the car flew out of control.
Eyewitnesses say it had been going way too fast, and weaving in and out of traffic on the northbound Sprain Brook Parkway, when it sailed off the road and up an embankment, and wrapped itself around a tree.
"That's one of the questions we have that needs to be answered. Driving the way they were, with a child in the back seat, it's, it's baffling," Becerra said.
Officials said the preliminary investigation revealed that 24-year-old Farion A. Daley, was behind the wheel of the 2005 Nissan Altima and traveling at a high rate of speed. The vehicle lost control and traveled from the right lane and exited the roadway at the left shoulder, traveling up an embankment, and subsequently struck a tree.
Several good Samaritans, one being a retired New York State Trooper, removed the injured Daley, his 1-year-old daughter, Aniyah Daley, and his brother, 19-year-old Ramarian Daley from the vehicle.
Aniyah Daley was pronounced dead at Westchester Medical Center.
Farian and Ramarian Daley remain in the hospital.
Shareka is their sister, and now she's simply numb.
"That's a lesson to everyone careful when you're driving because you never know, life is too short," Daley said.
State Police are asking any witnesses to the crash to please contact them at 914-769-2600.
