Friends of Aimee Lasco said Tuesday that they had no new information on what might have caused the Palmyra car accident that killed her Sunday as she drove her two children and a friend’s daughter home from a birthday party.

“Nobody knows, as far as I know, what actually happened,” said Brandi Smith, a friend of Lasco’s who said she considered her a sister. Smith’s daughter, Isabella Morse, was in the car with two of Lasco’s children during the accident on Raymond Road in Palmyra. Lasco, 29, was returning home to Hartland with the children.

Smith said her 5-year-old daughter was doing well and was acting strong on Tuesday, although she was still shaken up from the accident.

“She’s only 5,” Smith said. “I think she’s going to be angry for a little while until it all sinks in. She’s just mad at the situation.”

Maine Department of Public Safety Spokesman Steve McCausland said Tuesday that he had no new information on the cause of the accident, which took place around 2 p.m. on a quiet, newly paved stretch of road. “The investigators who were on the scene that day are on days off. I did put in an inquiry, but I have not heard back,” McCausland said.

Lasco’s 7-year-old daughter, Ryleigh Dumont, had been released from the hospital by Tuesday and was in the care of her foster mother, who was taking her to counseling on Tuesday, Smith said.

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Both Smith and her mother, Teanda Smith, said Sunday’s accident has been hard on their family and Lasco’s children. In addition to Ryleigh, Lasco had a 4-year-old daughter, Ava Burke, who was also in the accident, and a 5-year-old son, Carter. The three children have different fathers, and the boy’s last name was unavailable Tuesday.

“She’s really angry,” Teanda Smith, of St. Albans, said of her granddaughter Isabella. “She wasn’t saying much at all, and then she just acts mad. I don’t know if that’s just the way she’s dealing with it. I don’t know if she’s mad she was in an accident, or if she’s mad that Aimee’s gone. Aimee’s been a part of our family since she was about 3, because she and my daughter went to preschool together.”

Lasco, Isabella, Ryleigh and Ava were in the car Sunday when it went off the road and hit a tree. The group had just attended a birthday party at the Palmyra Community Center on U.S. Route 2. Lasco was not wearing a seat belt and died at the scene.

Jessica Robinson, who lives nearby, found the children wandering on the road after the crash.

“Ryleigh told (Robinson) — I don’t know if she was shaking her mother or what — but she said, ‘Momma looked up at me and said, ‘I’m really tired, honey,’ and then Ryleigh said that she died,” Teanda Smith said.

She said Ryleigh had been in the care of a foster home until recently and that she had gone to live with Lasco just in the past few months. Both Ryleigh and Isabella are students at Hartland Consolidated School.

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Principal Denise Kimball said Tuesday that she couldn’t comment on whether anything is being done for the students or their families. “All I can say is that we are in the process of putting things in place,” she said.

Teanda Smith said children loved Lasco — not just her own children, but also Smith’s nine grandchildren, almost all of whom called her Aunt Aimee.

“Every time those little girls walked by her, she would put her fingers through their hair and say, ‘I love you so much. You’re so beautiful,'” Teanda Smith said. “It was a constant, constant thing. I think even if she had been in severe pain or scared to death … she would not have let those little girls know that.”

Smith said all of her grandchildren are having a hard time dealing with Lasco’s death.

“Yesterday, one of my little granddaughters — she wasn’t in the accident but she’s very sensitive — she said, ‘Mimi, I just know in my heart P.J. was their little angel in the back seat to keep them safe.'”

P.J. was Lasco’s boyfriend, who died two years ago. Teanda Smith said she wasn’t sure what happened, but said he had been like a father to Ryleigh.

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Lasco’s stepfather, whom she was close to, also died last year.

“Ryleigh lost her grampy, her daddy and her momma within three years,” Teanda Smith said. “Not her real dad; her real dad loves her. I don’t mean it like that, but P.J. was very special to her.”

Brandi Smith said her daughter and Lasco’s son, Carter, were born in the same hospital just one day apart.

“It’s just really hard because I loved her to pieces,” she said. “Everybody keeps saying, ‘I’m so sorry you lost your friend,’ but I didn’t lose a friend. I lost my sister.”

Rachel Ohm — 612-2368

rohm@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @rachel_ohm


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