Wrong-way driver struck Kianna Underwood before she was dragged in fatal hit-and-run: NYPD
Kianna Underwood, who was killed in a horrific hit-and-run in Brooklyn on Friday morning, was struck by not one but two drivers — and the first one was driving on the wrong side of the street, going against traffic — police told the Daily News on Saturday.
Initially, cops were identifying only one car — described just as a black sedan — as being involved, saying it hit the 33-year-old former Nickelodeon star, then dragged her for two blocks until her body came loose from underneath it.
According to new information from police, Underwood was crossing the street in the crosswalk against a red light at the intersection of Pitkin Ave. and Mother Gaston Blvd. in Brownsville around 6:50 a.m. when she was first struck by the driver of a Black 2021 Ford Explorer SUV.
The SUV driver was heading westbound with the green light on Pitkin Ave. but, while trying to pass another vehicle that was making a right turn, veered across the double yellow line into an eastbound lane and hit Underwood, cops said.
Underwood may very well have been blindsided and never seen the SUV barreling down on her from the unexpected direction.
The driver did not stay at the scene.
Moments later, as the petite former actress’ body lay sprawled on roadway, she was struck again, this time by the driver of a black-and-gray sedan, with her body then being dragged by the car.
Video from cameras at Rainbow 2 Laundry, at Pitkin Ave. near Osborn St., shows the victim become dislodged from the sedan more than two blocks away, her body rolling out from under its wheels as the vehicle cruises past the laundromat.
The sedan driver also fled the scene, police said.
The video shows that after this second driver sped away, several people walked by unfazed, seemingly oblivious to the body lying in the street, though other bystanders eventually stopped and reached for their phones.
EMS pronounced Underwood dead at the scene.
No arrests have been made.
Underwood, who grew up in New York City, starred in films and TV shows in the late ’90s and early 2000s. She was only 6 years old when in 1999 she made her first film appearance in “The 24 Hour Woman.”
She was in the first national tour of “Hairspray” as little Inez and appeared in seven episodes of the Nickelodeon sketch comedy show “All That.”
Friends and neighbors recalled Underwood as a kind and talented young girl with a beautiful voice who had fallen on hard times after her years of childhood fame. People who knew her in Brownsville said she was homeless, and that she also described herself as homeless.
“She used to model for me when she was 5 and 6 years old. I had a modeling agency… She was beautiful and I just snapped her up,” said T.C. Jackson, a resident at the Lincoln Houses NYCHA complex in Harlem, where Underwood’s family previously lived for more than 25 years.
“After she did two fashion shows, she went on to television. She did TV commercials. She had real talent. She did Nickelodeon and then we didn’t see her after that.”