Fatal Route 22 car crash in Amenia leaves 2-year-old girl dead

AMENIA — A 2-year-old girl is dead following a car accident that occurred on Route 22 in the town of Amenia on Thursday morning, Oct. 8, at around 8:20 a.m., according to the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office. 

According to a preliminary investigation report released by the Sheriff’s Office the following day, the two-car fatal crash involved a 2018 Nissan Sentra operated by 26-year-old Millerton resident Reneisha Johnson. Johnson’s 2-year-old daughter, Ellie Dunlop, was a passenger in the Sentra. Johnson was traveling southbound on Route 22 and was stopped in traffic for “an uninvolved vehicle making a turn,” according to a release from the Sheriff’s Office.

A 2000 Ford Explorer operated by 73-year old Amenia resident, Forrest McBreairty, reportedly struck Johnson’s Nissan in the rear after failing to notice it was stopped on the roadway.

Both occupants of the Nissan were injured upon impact; the child was seriously hurt. The mother and daughter were initially transported to Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital in Poughkeepsie, from where they were flown to Westchester Medical Center. Ellie later passed away at Westchester Medical Center.

According to the press release, “Driver inattention and sun glare are thought to be the primary contributing factors in the crash.”

The Sheriff’s Office Detective Bureau and Crash Investigation Unit are continuing to investigate the crash and will release more information when it becomes available; at the present time, no charges have been filed. 

The Sheriff’s Office was assisted at the scene by the New York State Police and the Amenia Fire Department.    

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less