The man behind the wheel of the Porsche Boxster that went airborne and slammed into the second floor of a Toms River office building, killing the driver and his passenger, often went joyriding and had been hanging out a local pool hall earlier that Saturday night, his girlfriend told NJ Advance Media on Monday.
Braden DeMartin, 22, of Toms River, and his passenger Daniel Foley, 23, were killed in the Sunday morning crash on Hooper Avenue, according to police.
“He was probably joyriding," DeMartin’s girlfriend Kristen Aguiar said, after visiting the scene of the crash Monday morning. “Me and him did it all the time.”
Aguiar said she was supposed to go out with DeMartin the night of the crash, but fell asleep.
“That was supposed to be me in that car,” she said. The red 2010 Porsche, which is listed as having a top speed of 163 mph, was a gift from DeMartin’s father, she said.
DeMartin, a recent Rowan graduate, and Foley were childhood friends who graduated togetther from Toms River East High School together, Aguiar said. DeMartin was on the school’s golf team.
The two friends were playing pool at a billiard hall on Route 37, she said. Around 1 a.m., DeMartin stopped answering texts, Aguiar said.
“I keep thinking he’s going to text me,” Aguiar said. DeMartin recently graduated with a degree in bioformatics and had been preparing for interviews. He was working part-time at Dominos to make extra money, Aguiar said. Foley had been working as an electrician.
The time of the crash is unclear. Police said the crash was reported at 6:34 a.m. on Sunday.
The Porsche was speeding northbound on Hooper Avenue when DeMartin lost control, crossed the grassy median and two southbound lanes before hitting an embankment, said Jillian Messina, a spokeswoman for the Toms River Police Department.
The car vaulted into the air and plunged into the second story of a building on the southbound side of Hooper Avenue, police said. No one was inside the building, which houses a real estate agency and offices for three other companies. DeMartin and Foley were pronounced dead at the scene.
“(Foley) was the nicest kid I’ve ever met," friend Nicholas McConnell said. “Always laughing, smiling, joking, no matter what.”
Friends say DeMartin and Foley were both avid skateboarders who hung out at the now-closed Incline Club Skatepark in Lakewood as teens.
The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office called their deaths an “unimaginable accident” in a Facebook post.
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