Julio Acevedo, 44, suspected of fleeing the scene of the crash that killed Satmar hasidic couple Nathan and Raizy Glauber and their unborn baby in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, told the Daily News on Tuesday that he was planning to surrender, even as police continued their search for him.
Acevedo said that he was speeding away from a gunman who was trying to shoot at him early Sunday when the accident with the car service carrying the Glaubers happened.
He said he fled the scene because he was afraid of being killed by his pursuers, and didn’t know the couple had been killed until he saw it in newspapers.
“My heart goes out to them,” Acevedo told the Daily News on the phone. “I didn’t know they died until I saw the news.”
The friend who arranged the call to the newspaper, Derrick Hamilton, told AP that Acevedo is “meeting with a lawyer right now, they are going to arrange how to turn himself in.”
Police say Acevedo was driving a BMW going at least 60 mph when he crashed the car carrying Nachman and Raizy Glauber, both 21. They died Sunday, and their premature son died Monday. The car service was near a stop sign, and it’s not clear whether the driver stopped, since he was rushing the couple to the hospital, after Raizel had been complaining that she could not feel her unborn baby’s movements.
The Daily News pointed out that Acevedo was arrested last month on a charge of driving while under the influence.
He served close to 10 years in prison in the 1990s for the manslaughter shooting of the original “50 Cent,” whose nickname was taken up by the rapper Curtis Jackson.