Springfield Crash Victim Identified as Local Mother; Teen Suspect Faces Homicide Charges

Editor’s note: this story was updated on Thursday to include new details from the District Attorney’s press conference.

The Hampden District Attorney’s office has identified the victim of a fatal Labor Day hit-and-run crash in Springfield as Kristine Andrews, a 36-year-old mother.

At around 7:45 p.m. on Labor Day, Springfield Police responded to a reported crash near the intersection of Boston Road, State Street, and Berkshire Avenue.

Police found that the perpetrator had already fled from the scene, but he had struck his victim so forcefully that her body had been impaled on the tall iron fence surrounding St. Michael’s Cemetery, next to the roadway.

Police say that Andrews died of her injuries on the scene.

Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni hosted a news conference Thursday to provide more details about the fatal crash on Boston Road on Monday evening.

Gulluni speculated that the suspected perpetrator, 18-year-old Nathan Colon, was drag racing at the time of the crash, and driving at speeds approaching 70 mph.

Gulluni told reporters that several 911 calls around the time of the crash reported that two cars were racing at high speeds through the neighborhood.

A little over an hour after Monday evening’s crash, Springfield Police located Colon in a nearby residential neighborhood and placed him under arrest.

According to Gulluni, Springfield Police had already witnessed Colon involved in a separate collision earlier that same day.

The Springfield Police Traffic Unit, in conjunction with the Hampden District Attorney’s Office, is continuing to investigate the killing.

Orphaned teen daughter: ‘She was all I had’

In an interview with Wesley Days of Western Mass. News earlier this week, the victim’s teen daughter, Kaylee Voisine, said that “it’s hard losing my mom. She was all I had. She was my best friend.”

Voisine told Days that her father died two years ago. Now she’s planning her mom’s funeral as a 16-year-old orphan.

Springfield’s deadliest street

The scene of Monday’s killing is at the far eastern end of State Street, which turns into Boston Road east of its intersection with Berkshire Avenue.

According to Gulluni, based on reports from 911 calls, Colon’s alleged street racing took advantage of the wide-open, multi-lane design of State Street.

“It is believed and alleged that the car being operated by the defendant was traveling side-by-side with another car at excessive speeds for almost two miles beginning at the Mason Square area (the intersection where State Street meets Wilbraham Road) in the City of Springfield all the way to the crash site at Boston Road,” said Gulluni.

State Street and Boston Road rank among the deadliest streets in Springfield, which itself consistently ranks among the least-safe cities in Massachusetts for traffic violence.

Both roads feature four lanes of traffic – a roadway design that encourages reckless speeding and puts pedestrians at heightened risk of death and serious injury.

Since the beginning of 2021, drivers have killed nine people along State Street. Seven out of those nine victims were pedestrians, including Michael Cooley, a lifelong Springfield resident who was killed down by a driver last fall in front of his apartment near the Springfield Central Library.

In the same period, drivers caused an additional five fatal crashes – not including Monday’s crash – along Boston Road.