The father of triplet toddlers who was killed by an out-of-control drunk driver on the Upper West Side was remembered as a “ball of love” who just wanted to see the people around him happy.
Hundreds of mourners flocked to Abbey Funeral Directors on Amsterdam Ave. Friday to bid farewell to Michael Saint-Hilaire, one of two men killed in a blistering May 15 crash.
“He just wanted people to be happy,” Saint-Hilaire’s sister, Kilsis, told the Daily News, looking over her sibling’s blue-topped oak casket lined with red votive candles at the funeral home. Nearby were photos of Saint-Hilaire in happier times shown on an endless loop.
“It was difficult to find pictures of him alone. He always wanted to commune,” Kilsis said, fighting back tears. “He was a ball of love.”
A funeral Mass for Saint-Hilaire, 35, was held Saturday at Ascension Roman Catholic Church on W. 107th St.
“He was the youngest of the five of us,” Kilsis said of her brother Michael. “He should have lived to see us in coffins not the other way around.”
“Because of someone’s senseless irresponsibility, here we are now,” she said bitterly.
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News
Police investigate after a vehicle struck multiple people on Amsterdam Ave. near W. 109th St. in Manhattan, New York, on Friday, May 15, 2026. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Saint-Hilaire was near the corner of W. 109th St. and Amsterdam Ave. when Elvin Suarez sped through the intersection in his Mercedes-Benz SUV and vaulted onto pedestrian island, hitting Saint-Hilaire and three other men.
Suarez, 61, also slammed into a parked, occupied van that started a five-car pileup, police say. He is charged with vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving.
Ruben Sena, a nearby barber, said that moments after the crash, he spoke to Suarez as the drunk driver unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of his mangled car.
“He asked me, ‘I hit somebody?’” Sena remembered. “(I) said, ‘Yes, you hit four people. Are you crazy?’ ”
After learning what had happened, Suarez appeared shaken and “changed color,” Sena said. When cops arrived, he was lying on the sidewalk next to his vehicle.
Suarez later scored a 0.1% on a Breathalyzer test, well above the 0.08% legal threshold for drunken driving, officials said.
Surveillance footage of the crash showed the victims Suarez struck were sent “flying several feet,” prosecutors said Monday as a Manhattan Criminal Court judge ordered him held on $250,000 bail.
Suarez lived in the neighborhood, where Saint-Hilaire grew up and where the other victim who died in the crash, Jason Negron, worked for years as a doorman at a residential apartment building.
Funeral services for Negron, a father of two, took place Saturday afternoon at Ortiz RG Funeral Home on Broadway near W. 187th St.
Zubosqui Garcia, 37, one of Saint-Hilaire’s best friends, was hanging out with both victims the afternoon of the crash and managed to jump out of the way when Suarez’s SUV came barreling toward them.
“It happened so quick, you had no time to react,” Garcia said. “I had to get myself out of the way (of) the vehicle, or now the vehicle would have hit me as well.”
“It was a horrifying scene,” he recalled. “From there on, I just like lost my brains. (I was) in shock mode over the things that I was seeing around me. I couldn’t react to what I was seeing. I was screaming, shouting, crying.”
Garcia said while Saint-Hilaire and Negron were friends with each other, reports claiming that Suarez was also friends of both victims were inaccurate.
“Even though he was from around the area, we didn’t know him like we know people here,” he said.
Saint-Hilaire was born and raised on W. 109th St. — just steps from where he was killed.
“He got plowed down right on the corner of our street,” his sister said.
He was an equipment technician for Mount Sinai Hospital and the proud father of triplets, two boys and a girl.
“They are going to be 2 years at the end of the month, May 26,” Kilsis said. “We’re going to miss him. Our whole community on the Upper West Side is going to miss him.”
