Dad working as delivery driver killed after holding onto his car while a teenager tried to steal it: Police

Background: News footage of the scene where Jhon Aponte Alarcon was killed in Newark, N.J., on April 4 (WNBC). Inset: Jhon Aponte Alarcon (GoFundMe).

A New Jersey father who was working as a delivery driver was killed when a teenager allegedly tried to steal his car.

Jhon Aponte Alarcon, 46, was pronounced dead on April 4 after being taken to the hospital for injuries he suffered in a car wreck in Newark, New Jersey. According to the Essex County Prosecutor”s Office, Alarcon was making a delivery at 12:45 p.m. and left his car running in the street while he brought a package to someone’s doorstep. The unnamed teenage suspect saw the car and allegedly got inside and started to drive away.

Alarcon ran back to his car and held onto it while the suspect kept driving. The suspect then crashed into a parked car, causing Alarcon’s car to flip over and crush the father of three sons.

Prosecutors said that the suspect ran away from the scene on foot. He was arrested on Tuesday and charged with first-degree murder, carjacking, vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, endangering an injured victim, and theft of a motor vehicle. Due to his age, his name has not been released.

One of Alarcon’s sons, Debyd Aponte, spoke to New York-based NBC affiliate WNBC about his family’s loss, telling the station that they did not initially know all the details about what happened to their father. Aponte said his family was only told that his father was in a car accident.

Aponte told WNBC, “It’s been really difficult. My dad was a hard-working man, he wasn’t doing anything bad. He was working, trying to provide for us, when this [tragedy] happens.”

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On a GoFundMe page started to raise money for funeral expenses, Alarcon’s son wrote, “This has completely shattered our world. One moment he was here, and the next he was gone. Nothing could have prepared us for this kind of pain.”

Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II encouraged anyone with more information about the case to call their tip line: 1-877-TIPS-4EC or 1-877-847-7432.