WOODBRIDGE, NJ—Authorities announced that Margarita Bukhmil, a 33-year-old East Brunswick resident died after being struck by a vehicle on Route 9 South in Woodbridge on December 27, the same day she was killed.

Bukhmil was walking on the highway at 3:25 a.m. when she was struck by a 1998 Nissan, according to a press release from the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office (MCPO).

She was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where she was pronounced dead 27 minutes later.

The statement did not make it clear which portion of Route 9 Bukhmil was on when the fatal crash occurred.  A section of Route 9 connects the Garden State Parkway and US Route 1 in Woodbridge Township.

“An investigation by Officer Philip Agosta of the Woodbridge Police Department and Detective Donald Heck of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office determined that the victim was walking on the highway when she was struck,” read the release.

Bukhmil was among the final state residents among the 607 killed on the state’s highways in 2016, a year that marked an increase in highway fatalities statewide.

One-hundred-and-sixty-seven were pedestrians and 18 were on bicycles, according to the stats, while 333 were behind the wheel of a vehicle, and another 89 were passengers, according to a report by NJ.com’s Susan Livio.

That marked an increase over 2015, when 562 died in crashes, or 2013, when NJ roadways claimed 542 lives. 

The increasing frequency of fatalities was reflected in repeated newspaper headlines throughout the year documenting local crashes. 

The NJSP stats, which do not account for Bukhmil’s death as the result of an apparent error, say that 48 people died in 44 “accidents” here in Middlesex County, the second most populous county in NJ, during 2016.  It’s not clear how many were pedestrians.

According to the MCPO statement on the fatal December 27 crash, the investigation is “ongoing” and an autopsy from the Middlesex County Medical Examiner’s Office was “not immediately available.”

“No charges have been filed against the driver of the Nissan, but the investigation is active and is continuing,” read the release.

Anyone with information is asked to call Officer Agosta at (732) 634-7700, extension 6546, or Detective Heck at (732) 745-8842.

Editor at New Brunswick Today | 732-993-9697 | editor@newbrunswicktoday.com | Website

Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate, a community organizer, and a former independent candidate for mayor of New Brunswick.

Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate, a community organizer, and a former independent candidate for mayor of New Brunswick.