NIAGARA FALLS — The criminal investigation into an explosive accident in November, first though to be a possible terrorist attack on the Rainbow Bridge, has been closed. Sources confirmed Wednesday that Niagara Falls Police Department’s Crash Management Unit probe of the accident ended without a determination of what caused it. Those sources said the investigation of the crash could be reopened “if new evidence becomes available.
” The crash victims were identified as Kurt P. Villani and Monica Villani, both 53, of Grand Island. The Villani family are the owners of Gui’s Lumber and seven Ace Hardware stores in Western New York.
The couple was reportedly on their way to Toronto to attend a concert at the time of the crash. A five-second clip of video, taken by a bridge security camera and released by U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, shows the Villanis’ car speeding onto the entrance of the bridge, striking a concrete barrier and then going airborne. That video did not show the impact of the vehicle in front of the customs’ inspection booths. However, a second video clip, obtained by news media organizations, showed a fireball shooting into the air in front of the booths.
Witnesses on the bridge said the car pancaked onto the plaza pavement and exploded into a ball of flames and smoke that destroyed one of the booths. A CPB officer inside the booth escaped the destruction with minor injuries. It took a joint team of local, state and federal investigators less th.