{"id":26017,"date":"2025-11-02T18:00:33","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T18:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/26017\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T18:00:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T18:00:33","slug":"handball-tourney-marks-10-years-since-halloween-crash-killed-3-in-pelham-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/26017\/","title":{"rendered":"Handball tourney marks 10 years since Halloween crash killed 3 in Pelham Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Family and friends gathered at Burns Playground in Pelham Bay on Saturday to remember Kristjan Leka through a sport he enjoyed playing in his downtime.<\/p>\n

On Halloween 2015, a Dodge Charger jumped the curb and struck trick or treaters. Three people were killed \u2013 Nyanna Aquil, 10; her grandfather Louis Perez, 65; and 24-year-old Kristjan Leka.<\/p>\n

“I feel like that happened yesterday because of the pain I feel in my heart and in my body is the same,” said Kristjan’s father Martin Leka.<\/p>\n

“He was a really, really wonderful kid. I’m so happy he has such good friends doing this every single year to keep his memory alive,” said Landa.<\/p>\n

Organizers told News 12 they have no plans to stop the annual event.<\/p>\n

Howard Unger, of The Bronx, was sentenced in 2018<\/a> to 4-12 years in prison for the crash. Prosecutors said he was “a ticking time bomb” when he decided to drive that night. Unger lost control of his vehicle after suffering a seizure behind the wheel. Prosecutors say he often drove without taking his medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family and friends gathered at Burns Playground in Pelham Bay on Saturday to remember Kristjan Leka through a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[12411,128,16521,8939,245,16523,525,9,24,63,16520,10375,16522,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-26017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-anniversary","9":"tag-bronx","10":"tag-deadly-crash","11":"tag-fatal-crash","12":"tag-halloween","13":"tag-memorial","14":"tag-morris-park","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-pelham-bay","19":"tag-pickleball","20":"tag-sports-tournament","21":"tag-the-bronx","22":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","23":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}