Police ID Victims Killed in Crash Between SUV and Disabled Vehicle on LIE

OLD WESTBURY, NY - Nassau Police have identified the two people who were killed on the Long Island Expressway Monday night when an SUV struck a disabled vehicle.

Lauren Stephan, 18, of Salem, and Yousef Shaker, 20, of Ridgewood, Queens, were standing outside a BMW with two other people between exits 40 and 39 in Old Westbury when a GMC Yukon struck the BMW, causing Stephan and Shaker to be thrown over the median into the eastbound lanes, police say.

The driver of the SUV was an off-duty NYPD officer, according to a Newsday report, but Nassau Police have refused to name the 33-year-old man, citing that there was "no apparent criminality" in the crash, which occurred at about 11 p.m. Monday.

Shaker, the driver of the BMW, was pronounced dead at the scene and Stephan died from her injuries at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow. The two other people who were outside the BMW, as well as the GMC driver, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Stephan split her time between Salem, an upstate town about an hour northeast of Albany and Queens, where she graduated a semester early from Masbeth High School last December, according to an obituary in The Post-Star.

Stephan had been attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. Her father told Newsday that he believes his daughter and her friends were heading to a party on Long Island Monday night when they turned around and headed back toward the city because it started raining. Their car struck a guardrail and came to rest in the HOV lane, where it was then struck by the SUV.

Credit: ABC 7 report screenshot