Teen's Mom Gets Call from School Asking Where He Is, but He Was Already Dead on the Road Not Far Away (Exclusive) Janelle GriffithSeptember 9, 2025 at 8:47 PM 1 GoFundMe New York teen Christopher Williams' family is claiming his school didn't ensure his safety and left them to face "an unimaginable ...
- - Teen's Mom Gets Call from School Asking Where He Is, but He Was Already Dead on the Road Not Far Away (Exclusive)
Janelle GriffithSeptember 9, 2025 at 8:47 PM
1
GoFundMe
New York teen Christopher Williams' family is claiming his school didn't ensure his safety and left them to face "an unimaginable loss"
The 15-year-old was struck and killed by a vehicle on the Southern State Parkway near Valley Stream, New York, on Thursday
"They failed my child. They failed my child," Christopher's mom tells PEOPLE. "My son goes to a special needs school. He's autistic. How can they let him run away?"
A 15-year-old boy vanished from his school last week and was soon hit by a car, his family says — with relatives claiming his school failed to ensure his safety and left them to face "an unimaginable loss."
Christopher Williams, of St. Albans, Queens, was struck and killed by a vehicle on the Southern State Parkway near Valley Stream, N.Y., about 1:15 p.m. local time on Thursday, Sept. 4, according to the New York State Police.
Christopher, who has autism, was a student at the Martin de Porres School for Exceptional Children in Elmont, N.Y., near where he was hit.
Nassau County police first received a description of the person who was fatally struck on the parkway and then received a call from Christopher's school roughly 15 minutes later about a missing boy, detective Tracey Cabey tells PEOPLE.
Based on the descriptions, police were quickly able to identify Christopher as the victim, Cabey says.
Now Christopher's family is blaming his school for not "ensuring his safety."
In a GoFundMe to help cover funeral costs, his sister, Danecia Lewis, wrote that "on what should have been a normal school day, our world was shattered forever."
Lewis claimed that Christopher's school didn't even initially know he was off the grounds.
"The school called my mom asking where he was — unaware that he was already gone," Lewis wrote. "A short time later, a detective called her to identify his body. He had been struck by a car and killed."
Christopher's mother, Melissa Lewis, 57, whom he lived with, says he had high-functioning autism and would sometimes run away, which, she says, his school was well aware of.
"He ran away from my home plenty of times," she tells PEOPLE. "They know he's a runner."
On the day he was killed, she says her phone was not working and an assistant principal and behavioral assistant at the school came to her house about 1:30 p.m.
She says they told her that Christopher had jumped out of a window and asked her where he would go. She shared with them a nearby gym and store that he would frequent and gave them another number where they could reach her, the cell phone number of one of her other sons, and the two school officials left.
Not long after, police came to her home to inform her that her son had been killed, Lewis says.
She says the authorities were in possession of a photo of her son that they had gotten from the school.
"They failed my child. They failed my child," she tells PEOPLE of Martin de Porres. "My son goes to a special needs school. He's autistic. How can they let him run away?"
She adds: "I sent my son to school to get an education and he never returned home."
Lewis plans to file a formal complaint with Nassau police and wants the school shut down and for criminal charges to be filed.
Christopher was the youngest of four children. He had a sister and two brothers. "All my baby wanted to do was finish high school and go to college like his older brothers," Lewis says.The family's fundraiser seeks donations for his funeral expenses to "lay him to rest peacefully" and "give him the goodbye he deserves."
"He was only 15 years old, with his whole life ahead of him," his sister wrote on the GoFundMe. "The school failed him, and now our family is left grieving an unimaginable loss."
The school did not directly respond to an inquiry from PEOPLE about the family's account.
State police say the driver whose vehicle struck Christopher remained at the scene and the investigation is ongoing. No one has been charged.
Joe Trainor, the schools' executive director, said in a statement that officials were heartbroken at the loss of one of the students and that they are reviewing their procedures and policies.
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"We extend our deepest condolences to the student's family, friends, and loved ones," Trainor said. "Counseling and support services are being made available to our students and staff, and we ask for privacy so our school community can grieve and begin the healing process."
The school's mission "is to educate children experiencing emotional and behavioral problems, and through that education, we strive for every child to have the opportunity to reach his or her fullest potential. We will always stay true to those core values and put the health and education of our children first," Trainor said.
"As such, we take this incident very seriously," he said, "and, working with our board, have already begun a top-down review of our internal procedures and policies."
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