Crime Stoppers: Third person involved in deadly Port Charlotte crash

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. A 911 call led investigators to believe a third person was involved and was the driver in a deadly December crash that killed two people.

The crash near the intersection of U.S. Route 41 and Harbor Boulevard killed Port Charlotte residents Wesley Chery, 21, and Brittany Beni, 21, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

“I didn’t think this was something that just happened, because when you went to the crash site, there was no skid marks, nobody tried to stop and something wasn’t right,” Brittany’s mother Linda Beni said.

The car came in contact with a drainage ditch on the east shoulder of U.S. Route 41, went airborne, hit a roadway sign and a tree, and then landed in the Animal Clinic parking lot on 3300 Tamiami Trail, the FHP said.

A preliminary investigation showed the two victims were the only people involved in the crash, the FHP said. But a 911 call from the night of the crash led investigators to believe there is a third person.

“That literally is the one piece, that critical information that somebody can say ‘I definitively saw this person get into the car with Brittany and Wesley,'” Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers spokeswoman Trish Routte said. “The coward of a driver that took off that night and left their friends, they need to be held responsible.”

Anyone with information is asked to call Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS.

“It’s a mother’s nightmare to lose a child, it really is and my life will never be the same, but closing this case would give us a lot of answers,” Beni said.