Newton Man, 46, Killed as SUV Crosses Center Line on Route 16 in Tamworth

A 46-year-old Newton, Massachusetts man died Monday afternoon when the SUV he was riding in collided head-on with another SUV that had crossed into his lane on Route 16 in Tamworth, New Hampshire. Juan Gabarro was a passenger in a 2017 Nissan Rogue and was pronounced dead at the scene. Neither driver involved in the crash was hurt.

According to NBC Boston, investigators believe a 2023 Subaru Forester crossed the center median and struck the Nissan Rogue near Maple Road. New Hampshire State Police have identified the Subaru's driver as 30-year-old Samantha Remick of Albany, New Hampshire, and the Nissan's driver as 43-year-old Matthew Troisi of Winthrop, Massachusetts, according to The Conway Daily Sun. Police noted that both drivers were uninjured but were evaluated at the scene as a precaution.

Bystander Pulled Driver From Overturned SUV

The head-on impact caused the Subaru to flip onto its roof, the outlet reports. A passing motorist arrived within seconds of the crash and helped extract Remick from the overturned vehicle, staying with her until emergency crews reached the scene.

The collision forced a complete closure of Route 16 in Tamworth for roughly five hours Monday evening, drawing a response from the Carroll County Sheriff's Office, the Tamworth Fire Department, and the West Ossipee Fire Department. The stretch of Route 16 running through Tamworth serves as a major travel artery through the Lakes Region and Mount Washington Valley, and the crash occurred within the territory patrolled by New Hampshire State Police Troop E, which is headquartered directly on Route 16 in Tamworth and oversees law enforcement across 29 towns and the city of Laconia in Belknap and Carroll Counties.

Reconstruction Unit Investigating, No Charges Filed

The investigation remained active as of Tuesday, per the same NBC Boston report, and police have not said whether anyone will face charges in Gabarro's death. State troopers were joined in their investigation by the New Hampshire State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction (C.A.R.) Unit, a specialized team whose members undergo 240 hours of advanced training and handle roughly 60 of the state's most complex crash reconstructions each year, according to background compiled by attorneys at Shaheen & Gordon, P.A.

New Hampshire State Police have asked anyone with information about the crash to contact Trooper First Class Andrew Wilensky by email at [email protected], NBC Boston reported. The outlet's report on the case was written by reporter Asher Klein.

A Familiar Danger on New Hampshire's Rural Routes

The Tamworth crash echoes a fatal collision from June, when a northbound car crossed into oncoming traffic on Route 3 in Columbia and struck a pickup truck head-on, killing its driver — a case that also drew the state's crash reconstruction team. Head-on impacts from vehicles crossing the center line on two-lane rural highways rank among the deadliest collision types in New Hampshire, according to the state's 2022–2026 Strategic Highway Safety Plan from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, which has pushed centerline rumble strips and high-friction resurfacing as countermeasures on undivided roads like Route 16.

The stretch of Route 16 through Tamworth has already drawn safety scrutiny this year. State transportation officials recorded 23 vehicle collisions at the Route 16 and Route 113 intersection in nearby Chocorua between 2015 and 2024, prompting state and local leaders to debate four-way stop controls and reduced speed limits, The Conway Daily Sun reported in June. Statewide, New Hampshire recorded 135 traffic fatalities in 2024, an 8% increase over the prior year, according to the New Hampshire Office of Highway Safety and NHTSA, a rise that led officials to boost enforcement funding in high-crash corridors by 28%.

Under New Hampshire law, any crash resulting in death, injury, or more than $1,000 in combined property damage requires an official Uniform Police Traffic Accident Report to be filed with the state Division of Motor Vehicles within 15 days. That paperwork requirement will run alongside the C.A.R. Unit's ongoing reconstruction of what sent the Subaru across the center line — a question that, as of Tuesday, investigators had not yet answered.