A father who had just left Christmas dinner at his son’s house in 2019 was struck and killed by a driver who sped away — now that driver is facing charges, nearly five years later and following an international search.
It’s typically a holiday that brings families together, but the Dalrymple family has not been able to celebrate Christmas since that fateful December night when police said the driver of a speeding pickup truck killed their father and grandfather, 67-year-old Ainsley Dalrymple.
“He was a wonderful man, caring family man,” said his eldest daughter, Sherrice Dalrymple.
The 67-year-old man was crossing Rockaway Boulevard when he was struck and the driver took off. There have been nearly 40 hit-and-run incidents in 2019, many of which remain unsolved. NBC New York’s Andrew Siff reports.
She said that in the days that followed her father’s death, detectives told the family that they knew who the driver was, but there was a problem: Where he was hiding out in the South American country of Guyana, and how police would be able to extricate him back to New York City.
“They ran his plates. They knew he went to JFK [Airport] and he went to Guyana,” said Dalrymple. “There’s a process to get him. They always suspected him being there.”
Then there was the pandemic that brought travel to a sudden halt. Months of waiting for justice to be served turned into years.
“I thought it was a cold case. Justice would never be served,” Dalrymple said.
That went on until August. Authorities in New York worked with the U.S. Marshals to track down the alleged driver — Ravindra Dharamjit, originally from South Ozone Park, Queens — in Guyana and bring him back to face charges.
At Dharamjit’s first court appearance on Friday, his attorney said his client had no idea that he was wanted by the NYPD. The 26-year-old is now charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and other crimes. Dharamjit’s family was in court but left without explaining what their son was doing in Guyana, saying “we don’t know anything that happened.”
But Dalrymple’s family disagrees with that notion.
“Everyone knew,” said Sherrice Dalrymple. When asked if she thought the family had been hiding Dharamjit, Dalrymple said “most definitely.”
