The wife of a 23-year-old Lyft driver fatally struck by a car in Queens was seated in the passenger seat of the vehicle that mowed down her husband — just days after the two had happily attended a wedding together, the victim’s shocked family told the Daily News in an exclusive interview.
Victim Shaivar Sonalall was found sprawled out on the ground near the corner of 101st St. and Liberty Ave. in Ozone Park, dying from severe impact injuries across his head and body around 10:45 p.m. Thursday.
Responding officers found Sonalall’s wife, Christine Naiome Sonalall, 30, sitting inside a black Infiniti Q50 with another man a short distance away from where her husband was hit, police and relatives said.
EMS rushed Sonalall to Jamaica Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.
Christine and her 31-year-old male companion, believed to be her ex-boyfriend, told police Sonalall had followed them to 101st St. and then stormed up to the car window, reaching for something as if he had a gun, the pair told investigators.
The ex-boyfriend told police he feared for his life and sped off down 101st St., striking Sonalall as he zipped away.
A representative from the Queens District Attorney’s Office said no charges were immediately filed as police and prosecutors continue to investigate.
Cops were told Sonalall and his wife were estranged, but the dead man’s relatives said the two were very much in love and had just attended a wedding together the weekend before he was killed.
“They were so happy together,” the victim’s aunt, Samantha Persaud, 43, told The News. “They went to Schenectady for the whole weekend for a wedding, and came back Tuesday. How could he be a stalker?”
Persaud said that Sonalall “just wanted to know where his wife was” when he was run down.
Sonalall lived with Persaud, his mother, and younger sister, relatives said. Christine also lived with them, but often stayed elsewhere “with relatives” since the victim typically worked all night as a Lyft driver, Persaud admitted.
They had been married for two years, she said.
On the night of his death, Sonalall’s family, who live nearby, showed up at the scene. His mother was so crippled by grief that Persaud had to identify the young man’s body at the hospital, she said.
“I saw his face. It was terribly damaged,” she said. “The doctor said he died on the spot.”
“We’re just hearing different things. We don’t understand,” another relative who wished not to be named, said. “[The driver] ran someone over and killed him. How are there no charges?”
Sonalall, Persaud said, was a “hard-working Lyft driver,” who also supported his mother and his 14-year-old sister. He immigrated to New York from Guyana six years ago.
“[He wanted] a better life,” Persaud said. “He didn’t even live his life yet. Next month is his 24th birthday.”
The heartbroken aunt doesn’t know how he could have met such a violent end.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “He wasn’t a stalker. [The driver] could have just reversed the car.”
With Thomas Tracy
Originally Published: August 1, 2025 at 8:05 PM EDT
