Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Villanova student killed when stolen SUV rams his car in Bryn Mawr

The impact of the crash was so powerful that it knocked out the car's engine, flipped the silver Jetta end over end, and hurled it into a stone wall.

The impact of the crash was so powerful that it knocked out the car's engine, flipped the silver Jetta end over end, and hurled it into a stone wall.

"And we're talking about a rear-end collision," Haverford Township Police Chief Carmen Pettine said.

The car had been rammed by a stolen Range Rover rocketing more than 100 m.p.h. along Haverford Road in Bryn Mawr just after midnight Wednesday. Killed was Daniel Giletta, 22, a Villanova University senior and National Honor Society student from Wyckoff, N.J., known for his charity work.

The Jetta's other occupant, Frank "Patrick" DiChiara, 22, of Toms River, N.J., Giletta's roommate and a Villanova junior, was reported in critical condition Wednesday night at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

The Jetta essentially was crushed by the impact, and extricating the victims took more than an hour.

The driver of the stolen Range Rover, which evidently struck the Jetta at an angle, minimizing the impact to the driver's side of the SUV, managed to escape and remained the subject of a manhunt Wednesday night.

"It was just a total tragedy what happened," said Bernard Giletta, the victim's father, who owned the Jetta. He learned of the crash when his wife and older sons picked him up at the airport as he returned from an overseas business trip. "We have pretty strong faith," he said. "I was just telling my wife that will help us get through this now."

"It's crazy, just crazy," said Tim McElhinney, principal of Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, N.J., from which Giletta graduated in 2007.

"Dan was a great kid," he said. "The whole community is in a lot of pain." Giletta, an engineering major, was a member of the Christian Crusaders for Action, a faith-based student group dedicated to helping the impoverished. He helped organize fund-raising efforts to bring a foreign child to the United States for a heart operation.

DiChiara, who attended Toms River High School North, is well-regarded by his peers, said his uncle, Gerard DiChiara. "He's a very popular kid."

"I am devastated," said Eric Magleby, 20, a Villanova senior and member of the same fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, as the victims. "They are two of my best friends."

Magleby said he was with the two Tuesday night, watching TV at an Ardmore house occupied by four fraternity brothers. He said his two friends left around midnight.

Police are still unraveling the sequence of horror that followed.

A Haverford police officer whose car was facing south on Haverford Road near Eagle Road spotted the northbound Range Rover, which had been reported stolen about six hours earlier from the parking lot of a Bryn Mawr doctor's office.

But before he had a chance to notify headquarters that he was going to turn around and pursue the vehicle, it sped away, Pettine said.

The Range Rover traveled the two miles to where the crash happened, near Rugby Road, in 90 seconds, police said. Once it rammed the Jetta, the smaller vehicle flipped end over end.

A huge bloodstain and a riot of skid marks were visible at the crash site.

Giletta was dead at the scene from massive head injuries, and DiChiara was flown to HUP, the police chief said.

DiChiara's uncle said Wednesday night that his nephew's prognosis was good, adding that relatives at the hospital had been besieged with requests from friends who wanted to visit.

After the collision, the SUV went 400 or 500 feet more until it became inoperable and the driver got out. "He bailed out and fled the scene on foot," Pettine said.

Haverford Township police said they were working around the clock to find the driver of the stolen SUV. No one was reported to have witnessed the crash, and no description of the driver was available.

As the search continued, about 350 students and faculty members packed St. Thomas of Villanova Church for a memorial service Wednesday at the university. The Rev. Peter M. Donohue, Villanova president, said the tragedy had been a shock to the Villanova community. "To be honest," he said, "I don't know what to say."

"All of us here at Villanova are saddened to learn of this tragedy and extend our deepest sympathy and prayers to family and friends of both students," the Rev. John Stack, Villanova's vice president for student life, said in a statement. "We ask that you keep these students and their families in your prayers."

Claudia L. Hargrove, the physician who owned the Range Rover, promised to do just that.

Hargrove, whose office is in the 800 block of Glenbrook Avenue in Bryn Mawr, "wants the families to know how terrible she feels," said her attorney, "and she's keeping the family members in her thoughts and prayers."