Palm Beach County apologizes for removing memorial for victims of 1996 crash west of Boca Raton

BOCA RATON — Emily Slosberg was in disbelief Wednesday when she found out that a memorial honoring her twin sister, four others who also were fatally wounded and a sixth victim left paralyzed by a horrific wreck in 1996 had been removed from the side of a road west of Boca Raton.

But Thursday, she was stunned, frustrated and baffled by the reason the crash-site memorial vanished — it had been removed by Palm Beach County.

"I was shocked," Emily Slosberg said. "I didn't know what had happened."

Slosberg said she had found out from the sheriff's office that the county removed it, apparently by mistake. PBSO had looked at video-surveillance cameras in the area and determined the county's Engineering and Public Works Road Section was responsible.

Late Thursday, the county issued the following statement:

On Friday, August 18, 2023, Palm Beach County Engineering and Public Works staff removed the memorials from four sites, including the memorial located on the south side of Palmetto Park Road, approximately 0.4 miles west of the Florida Turnpike. The memorial’s position was outside of Palm Beach County’s Right of Way, and the removal was in error.

The County has contacted the family of this memorial site to re-install the memorial at its original location.

Palm Beach County offers its deepest sympathy to all families involved.

The memorial included four crosses, one Star of David, photos of the five children who died and mementos that the families and friends of the victims arranged after the two-car wreck. The monuments were cast in cement and had withstood three major hurricanes along with other storms for 27 years.

County Commissioner Marci Woodward said she had called on the county engineer's office to reconsider how it removes memorials.

The current policy is that the office removes memorials placed on county property and that it looks at them as unpermitted structures.

Woodward said the county had apparently been removing memorials for years. In addition to the Slosberg memorial, at least two others were also taken down last week, according to Woodward.

“We can find a better way to handle this,” Woodward said. “We have to at least try to reach out to these people before we take them down.”

She said the county should not be adding to the grief of someone who has lost a loved one in a crash. Woodward said she had been pleased to learn that the contents of the memorial have been carefully preserved.

Deputy county engineer Joanne Keller didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Emily Slosberg, who was in the car the evening of the crash, said "it's a place where we go on their birthdays, on holidays, on the anniversary of the crash," which was Feb. 23, 1996.

"It's where we go to pay tribute and memorialize my twin sister and friends."

Emily and her father, Irv, also used the site, on West Palmetto Park Road between Florida's Turnpike and Lyons Road, to educate people on the consequences of unsafe driving. They'd tell members of a youth-offender program what happened there as part of a PBSO diversion program.

Five years ago, a $4 million project for sidewalk improvements was careful not to disturb the memorial.

Concrete barriers were placed around the site during a roadside project that widened a shared-use path and improved access for pedestrians and bicyclists along a 6-mile stretch of West Palmetto Park Road.

Emily Slosberg said she had received calls and emails from the public about the possibility of disturbing the memorial.

“I was worried initially because nobody reached out to me, except the community members,” Slosberg said at the time. “I had people in the community reaching out to me and asking me what was going on with the memorial because they saw people putting flags, markers and sticks in the ground.”

A declaration that the memorial will stay in its current location, untouched, was written into the plans.

“The sidewalk project doesn’t affect the memorial, and, in fact, a contractor has already put some barrier wall around it, so no vehicles or construction equipment will disturb the area,” said Barbara Kelleher, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Transportation, before the project began in 2018.

It's not clear why the county removed the memorial this time, other than the site did not have a permit.

What happened on Feb. 23, 1996?

The wreck, on Feb. 23, 1996, was one of the deadliest Palm Beach County has seen, killing five teenagers and leaving a sixth paralyzed.

Nicholas Frank Copertino, then 19, was driving his 1995 Honda Civic at speeds between 85 and 90 mph west on Palmetto Park when the car skidded, jumped the median and slammed into an eastbound Acura.

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The seven teenagers sitting crammed and unbuckled in the back seat were ejected through the Civic’s rear window as the car swerved across the road.

Carolina Gil Gallego, 14, Dori Slosberg, 14, Ryan Rashidian, 15; Crystal Cordes, 14, and Margaux Schehr, 13, were killed. Maribel Farinas, 14, was left a quadriplegic.

Emily Slosberg, Dori's sister, Copertino and three women in the Acura were seriously injured. An eighth passenger in the Civic, David Grossman, sustained minor injuries.

The aftermath: Legislation called the Doris Slosberg Seatbelt Safety Act

In 2009, Irv Slosberg, a former Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives, pushed the Dori Slosberg Seatbelt Safety Act through the state Legislature. It requires drivers, front-seat passengers and anyone under 18 to wear a seat belt and has been credited with saving up to 500 lives every year.

Copertino, now 46, was found guilty on May 20, 1997, of five felony counts of manslaughter by culpable negligence and six first-degree misdemeanor counts of culpable negligence. He faced up to 90 years in prison. He received a 15-year sentence and served a little more than 11 years before he was released on April 5, 2013.

RELATED: Boca's State Rep. Emily Slosberg, an expecting mom, announces she won't seek re-election

According to state records, Copertino, who was living in Margate, was on probation until April 2023.

Palm Beach Post Staff Reporter Mike Diamond contributed to this report.

Jasmine Fernández is a journalist covering Delray Beach and Boca Raton at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at jfernandez@pbpost.com. Help support our work. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: County removes memorial for victims from 1996 car crash west of Boca Raton