Driver charged with manslaughter after crash kills two Beach teens
Tessa Tranchant, 16, left, and Allison Kunhardt, 17, were killed late Friday in a crash on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
Tessa Tranchant, 16, left, and Allison Kunhardt, 17, were killed late Friday in a crash on Virginia Beach Boulevard. COURTESY PHOTO
By STEVE STONE AND DAVE FORSTER, The Virginian-Pilot
© April 1, 2007
VIRGINIA BEACH - Two teenagers were killed late Friday when a car plowed into the rear of their vehicle as they waited for a green light at an intersection. The driver of the other car was charged with manslaughter.
"It's tragic is all I can say," said Jimmy Barnes, a police spokesman.
The victims were 17-year Allison Kunhardt of the 700 block of Sir Walter Circle and 16-year-old Tessa Tranchant of the 4500 block of Genoa Circle.
"They were just sitting at the light, strapped in their seat belts," said Ray Tranchant, Tessa's father. "They were just doing what they were supposed to be doing."
Charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter is Alfredo Ramos, 22, who gave his address to police as the 100 block of Trace Court, Barnes said. That address, just off Virginia Beach Boulevard, is less than two miles from the scene of the collision.
Ramos is being held without bond at the Virginia Beach Correctional Center pending an arraignment hearing Monday.
Meanwhile, the families and friends of the two victims struggled with grief.
Dozens of them gathered in the afternoon at a Friendly's restaurant Saturday to console each other. The two girls became close friends when Tessa's mother began dating Allison's father.
"When they met they were inseparable," Colette Tranchant said of her daughter and her friend.
Allison attended First Colonial High School; Tessa attended Kellam.
"You see all of the friends she has here," Colette Tranchant said, looking around the restaurant Saturday.
Students from Kellam High School console each other Saturday at Virginia Beach Boulevard and Kings Grant Road, where a Kellam classmate and a student at First Colonial High School were killed in a crash the previous night. GENEVIEVE ROSS / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Among them was Tessa's older brother, Dylan Tranchant.
He said the girls spent much of Friday holed up in his sister's room watching movies. The two shared a Monty Python-like sense of humor and loved to quote lines from the film "Napoleon Dynamite," he said.
"It almost becomes like an improv comedy when they're together," he said. "They were a perfect pair."
After the movies, Tessa, an aspiring chef who also loved to sing and surf, her mother said, cooked a spicy meal of chicken wings and pizza.
The girls were driving to a friend's house Friday night.
"I'm just going to go ahead and ride with denial for a while," Dylan Tranchant said.
Friends recalled Tessa as a goofy, sassy, positive girl to whom people could tell secrets in confidence and not worry about them becoming gossip.
"She wouldn't give anyone a reason not to like her," Samantha Augone said.
Allison, known as Ally by her friends, was a typical teenage girl who loved clothes, music and shopping, Dylan Tranchant said.
"They always went everywhere together," he said of the two.
David Kunhardt said police came to his door about 2:15 a.m. Saturday to deliver the news.
The death has shaken Allison's entire family, "but especially her older sister," Ashley, 22, a junior at Old Dominion University, he said. "She is taking it very hard."
Allison "had a great, unbelievably witty sense of humor," her father said. "She was always upbeat." He recalled bringing her on cruises to the Caribbean. "I took her a couple times and she fell in love with it. She would bring it up every three months or so: 'Let's go on a cruise, Dad.' "
He said his daughter loved music and theater.
She worked at a local market and dreamed of becoming an interior decorator after college. Her style "was always away from the norm," he said. "It always had to be different."
Her "number one thing, however, was to hang out with Tessa," he said. "They were definitely inseparable. I've never seen a closer friendship. They would finish each other's sentences."
The girls' friends cried and laughed as they talked Saturday, but there was an undercurrent of anger.
One girl said many of the friends plan to attend Ramos' trial.
The wreck was reported about 11:25 p.m., Barnes said, at Virginia Beach Boulevard and Kings Grant Road.
Barnes said Ramos was driving a 1998 two-door Mitsubishi westbound on Virginia Beach Boulevard when it crashed into the rear of a 1994 Plymouth driven by Allison. Barnes said both speed and alcohol were factors in the wreck.
The Plymouth was stopped at a red light at the Kings Grant intersection, Barnes said.
Allison and Tessa were pinned in the wreckage and had to be cut free before paramedics could tend them.
One of the girls died at the scene; the other was pronounced dead shortly after arrival at a hospital, Barnes said. Both were wearing seat belts, he said.
Ramos also was wearing a seat belt and suffered only minor injuries, Barnes said.
It was unclear how fast the vehicle Ramos was driving was going at the time of the crash or whether he attempted to stop before the collision. The speed limit in that area is posted at 45 mph.
Barnes said the investigation continues and that additional details may be released Monday.
