![\"Joshua](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1006sicrash1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
GoFundMe<\/p>\n
Joshua Mendez and Jose Pazos were killed in a Staten Island car crash on Sunday morning. (GoFundMe)<\/p>\n
Police said after the red sedan went out of control and struck the median, it flipped onto a section of grass by the highway at about 4:20 a.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n
Mendez and Pazos were two of seven brothers to their parents, Walter Aguilar and Mirna Mendez, who moved with their big family to the New Brighton section of Staten Island 18 years ago.<\/p>\n
![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/TNY-P25-20251005-080648.jpg\")
Three young men died in a crash on the Staten Island Expressway when the driver of the 2015 Chevrolet Cruz they were in lost control and struck a concrete barrier before overturning on the grassy median off the exit ramp leading to Route 440 North in Staten Island on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n
The parents were too grief-stricken to talk with a reporter on Monday, but a third brother, Jason Aguilar, said he, Mendez and Pazos all worked for Amazon on the same shifts in warehouses located across the street from each other on Staten Island.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s crazy because we were talking about celebrating his [Jose\u2019s] birthday on Oct. 10. He [Jose] was about to turn 28. That same day, my brother Joshua was supposed to have his baby. Joshua\u2019s daughter was actually born on the same day as my brother\u2019s [Jose\u2019s] birthday. That day [Oct. 10] was really special.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have always been together, grew up together. We stick to each other. Seven brothers is like a bond, and we never thought it\u2019s going to go,\u201d said Jason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard talking about it. What are we gonna do? We already had everything planned,\u201d Jason Aguilar said.<\/p>\n
Mendez\u2019s death has also devastated his girlfriend, Kim Lopez, who was about to give birth to their son. The couple also has a daughter, age 5, she said. \u201cJoshua\u2019s son was about to be born on [Oct. 9],\u201d Lopez told The News. \u201cHis brother Christian called me at like 6 in the morning and told me what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was working to support the baby,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was working to get his life together. He was a good guy. We were planning to get married down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason Aguilar said the now-wrecked Cruze that his two brothers and Irizarry were in was kind of the family car.<\/p>\n
![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/TNY-P15-20251005-080457.jpg\")
Three young men died in a crash on the Staten Island Expressway when the driver of the 2015 Chevrolet Cruz they were in lost control and struck a concrete barrier before overturning on the grassy median off the exit ramp leading to Route 440 North in Staten Island on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my mom\u2019s, but at the same time, was my brother\u2019s because she gave it to him,\u201d Aguilar said. \u201cThey [detectives] told me they might\u2019ve lost control of the car or something, but I\u2019m not really sure how.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Lopez and Aguilar did not know why the men were out on the highway at that hour. Aguilar recalled a brief conversation on Saturday \u2014 the last one with his brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came in at 7; he came in a little later, around 10. I left early, around 4-something, because I had my girlfriend\u2019s appointment, we\u2019re about to have a baby ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember saying, \u2018I\u2019ll see you later, I\u2019m going to mom\u2019s house,\u2019 and he said the same. Then later, I didn\u2019t see him. I woke up to this news, I thought it was a dream. It didn\u2019t feel real until I went there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 6, 2025 at 8:09 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joshua Mendez was looking forward to the birth of a son this week, and his brother Jose Pazos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,134,136,135,265],"class_list":["post-5292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292","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=5292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}