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3rd Car Crash Latest Tragedy For Brandon-Area Families

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 17, 2008

Updated: 11/17/2008 02:44 pm

VALRICO - For the third time in three years, a small group of families has come together to deal with a serious car crash. For the second time, a crash has resulted in death.

Joanna Chastain of Brandon, a 2007 Durant High graduate, was killed in a fiery crash about midnight Sunday. Chastain's passenger, Christopher Richards, 20, of Brandon, was also killed. Another passenger, Andrew Santilli of Valrico, was critically injured.

Chastain was 19. Her birthday is in December.

"This is the third time this same group of parents has had to get together for a tragedy," said Laura Marchetti of Valrico, whose daughter Katie Marchetti died in a car crash on Interstate 75 in 2006. "All these same parents are facing tragedy together again."

On Sunday, the driver of a 2000 Acura lost control of her car, which hit the center median and then spun into a utility pole on State Road 60, just east of Mud Lake Road, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The pole caught fire. Troopers said no one was wearing a seat belt.

Troopers had still not officially released the driver's identity Monday afternoon. She was so badly burned in the crash, they are leaving it to the Medical Examiner's Office to make a positive identification.

Santilli, who was in the back seat, was transported to Tampa General Hospital after the accident. The hospital released no information on his condition today.

"Everyone is just raw," said Marchetti, whose daughter had been close friends with Chastain. "I'm just devastated because I knew her well," she said. It's a personal loss" as well as a community loss, she said.

Richards' family, too, is feeling the weight of the tragedy.

"I don't know where they were headed, but I'd like to believe they were headed home," said his mother, Alison Richards.

Richards and Chastain were longtime friends, she said. A 2006 graduate of Faith Baptist School in Brandon, Richards had recently decided to pursue college, his mom said.

"He was a very outgoing kid who definitely believed in living life to the fullest every day," she said. "He was a very happy kid who loved his family and friends."

Marchetti said so much tragedy in such a tight community has been almost too much to bear.

Her daughter was killed when her boyfriend dozed off at the wheel as the two returned from a family dinner in Sarasota. Katie, who was 16, was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from the car. Her mother has since launched a campaign to promote seat-belt use and safe-driving practices among teens.

A year before Marchetti's death, Chastain had been involved in another accident with friend Kaye Sommer of Valrico. Chastain was not wearing a seat belt when her car hit a telephone pole in 2005, leaving her with a serious facial scar.

Chastain and Marchetti were two of Sommer's best friends.

After arriving back at the University of North Florida campus in Jacksonville on Monday afternoon, Sommer said by phone she is still too overwhelmed by the loss to talk about it.

Laura Marchetti said she felt similarly.

"As a mother," she said, "it stirs every emotion."

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566.

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