Late on the evening of October 8, 2025, a routine drive to celebrate a teammate’s birthday turned into a nightmare on Rosehill Road in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Three young men from E.E. Smith High School—17-year-olds Trevor Merritt and Nicholas Williams, and 18-year-old Jai’Hyon Elliott—lost their lives when the vehicle they were riding in veered off the road, struck a telephone pole, continued down a walkway and crashed into a tree.
According to the Fayetteville Police Department, the car involved was a 2024 Honda Civic driven by 21-year-old Dymond Nekiya Monroe. Monroe was returning from the high-school football team’s practice when the crash occurred; she and her passengers were on the way to a surprise 18th-birthday gathering for her younger brother, who was also a teammate of the victims.
Investigators say this was far from an ordinary crash. Speed appears to have played a major role: the posted limit on that stretch of Rosehill Road is 45 mph, yet Monroe’s vehicle is estimated to have been traveling at nearly double that speed at the moment of impact. What’s more shocking: investigators found that Monroe and her 19-year-old sister, Destini Rhinada Genwright, were engaging in what police described as “willful speed competition” — in plain terms, racing each other when the deadly crash happened.
Monroe, severely injured in the crash and airlifted to a hospital in Chapel Hill, now faces three counts of involuntary manslaughter, in addition to charges of speeding, reckless and careless driving, and operating without insurance. Her sister, Genwright, has since turned herself in and has been charged with willful speed competition, speeding, reckless driving and an insurance violation. She was released on a bond of $10,000.
The school community is reeling. The Cumberland County Schools district issued a heartfelt statement saying they are “heartbroken” at the loss of three young men whose energy, friendship and athletic promise left a lasting mark at E.E. Smith and beyond. Teammates, coaches and classmates have left flowers, football gloves and personal mementos at the site of the crash, creating a growing memorial where so much hope once drove by.
Local authorities say the investigation remains ongoing. Detectives with the FPD Traffic Unit have asked anyone with information to contact them; meanwhile, the community is asking bigger questions about street safety, reckless driving, and the consequences when a moment’s thrill leads to lifelong tragedy.
In the end, this incident offers a sobering lesson: what begins as excitement, a friendly race or a quick drive, can become something no one ever imagined—especially when the pedal meets the road at dangerous speed, and when young lives are in the passenger seat. Families are mourning. A community is shaken. And three bright futures now lie stopped in time.
