Car goes out of control, hits trees, killing 3 on A.C. Expressway

A group of young men sat in silence on the steps of a North Philadelphia rowhouse yesterday afternoon, mourning their friend Steve Blount, as rain pelted an awning above them.

Blount, police said, was one of three men killed early yesterday when the 2001 Saab he was traveling in drove off the Atlantic City Expressway in Camden County and hit several trees.

"We still don't really know a whole lot," said his uncle Michael Blount. "He was a good kid."

New Jersey State Police confirmed that Blount and Stephen Baxley, 23, of Tolbut Street, were two of the three men killed in the accident. Sgt. Stephen Jones said the three were traveling west on the expressway about 12:27 a.m., when the vehicle went out of control, left the roadway and struck trees in the center median, Jones said.

Blount's mother, Tamika Corbin, said that her son and the two men had used her 2001 Saab to go to Atlantic City on Saturday.

"They were going to the beach," she said.

Jones said that the third victim, who was driving, had not been positively identified as of last night. Corbin identified the man as Bernard Sanford, 20, also of Philadelphia.

Neither Sanford's nor Baxley's family could be reached for comment.

Michael Blount, standing outside his nephew's home, at Huntingdon Street near 23rd, said that the family learned of the accident about 10 a.m. The young men who sat on the stairs, some with their heads buried in their hands, declined to comment.

None of the victims was wearing a seatbelt, Jone said.

The accident took place at mile marker 39.7 in Winslow Township, about eight miles west of a "Stay Alive" road sign. All three were men were pronounced dead at the scene, Jones said.

Corbin said that her son was a student at Cheyney University and was expecting a child with his girlfriend.