Brick Driver, 24, Indicted for Vehicular Homicide in Wrong-Way Parkway Crash

Gavel (Credit: Brian Turner/Flickr)

A Brick Township man accused of killing a female driver in a head-on collision last year has been indicted by a grand jury sitting in Monmouth County, prosecutors announced Thursday.

Deryn R. Gomez, 24, of Brick, is charged with second-degree vehicular homicide. According to a statement from prosecutors, on Oct. 26, 2024, at approximately 4:20 a.m., New Jersey state troopers responded to a three-vehicle crash in the southbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway in the area of milepost 102.8, which is located within the Borough of Tinton Falls. The crash was described as an opposite-direction, head-on collision.

A state police investigation, with the assistance of detectives from the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Bureau, determined that Gomez was driving a 2013 Honda Accord northbound in the southbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway when he struck a 2002 Honda Civic traveling in a southbound direction. After the initial crash, both vehicles were struck by a 2014 Volkswagen Jetta operated by a male driver traveling in the southbound lanes of the Parkway.

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The driver of the Honda Civic, later identified as Priscilla Gladden-Pertuz, 28, of Paterson, was pronounced deceased on scene.

During the course of the investigation, Gomez was issued motor vehicle summonses for driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, and driving against the flow of traffic. The case is assigned to Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutor Caitlin J. Sidley of the Major Crimes Bureau. Gomez is represented by Rutherford-based attorney John J. Bruno.

No photos of Gomez were made available.