Accidents victims include Mount Laurel doctor and Camden teen

Correction: Dr. Matthew Gilliss died of injuries from an accident on Sunday night, April 11. An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the date.

Traffic accidents have killed four people on South Jersey roads in recent days, including a local doctor and a Camden teenager, authorities say.

The most recent crash occurred around 3:25 p.m. Thursday when a car ran off southbound Route 42 in Gloucester Township, according to New Jersey State Police.

The Hyundai Elantra struck several trees and overturned on the right side of the highway near milepost 7.4. The driver, whose name was not immediately available, was pronounced dead at the scene.

In other accidents, Dr. Matthew Gilliss, 44, of Haddon Heights died after his car hit a tree in Cherry Hill, said the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

The crash occurred shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday near a curve in a wooded area where Park Road meets Frontage Road, according to New Jersey State Police

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Gilliss specialized in family medicine at an Advocare practice with offices in Mount Laurel, Williamstown and Vineland.

According to an online biography, Gilliss was a third-generation doctor and the husband of a physician. He was the father of three children.

Gilliss was a 2003 graduate of University of Medicine and Dentistry New Jersey-School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford. He also held a bachelor's degree with honors in biology from Rutgers University.

The Camden victim, Nah' Jole Frazier, 16, was fatally struck around 9:40 p.m. Monday by a vehicle at Collings and Alabama roads in the Fairview section.

"He made you laugh, he made you happy," Frazier's mother, Tomeka Holmes, said Wednesday afternoon at a vigil near the accident site.

"He was a rapper," she said of her son, who was also known as Zeeky Bandz, "He was very talented and outgoing." 

Family members says Frazier had died a hero, pushing his sister out of the path of an oncoming car. Monday.

"My son gave up his life to try and save his sister," the teenager's father, city activist Gary Frazier Jr., said in a Facebook post.

A Salem County man, 75-year-old Gary Shute of Pedricktown, died in a multi-vehicle crash that closed part of Interstate 295 in West Deptford for seven hours Tuesday.

Shute was a passenger in a dump truck that overturned around 2:50 p.m. on the southbound highway near mile post 21, said Trooper Alejandro Goez, a New Jersey State Police spokesman.

A tractor trailer initially rear-ended the dump truck on the highway's right lane, causing the dump truck to strike a car on its left, said Goez.

The car and the dump truck swerved across the highway, striking a guardrail on the left. The dump truck overturned on the roadway, where it was hit again by the tractor trailer, Goez said.

Shute was pronounced dead at the scene.

The dump truck's driver, 76-year-old Fred Nicolosi Jr. of Woolwich, was flown to Cooper University Hospital, Camden, with serious injuries, Goez said.

A Maryland man driving the car sustained moderate injuries. The tractor trailer's driver was unhurt.

The accident caused an extended shutdown of southbound 295 between exits 20 and 21, Goez said.

Jim Walsh reports for the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. His interests include crime, the courts and being first with breaking news. Reach him at jwalsh@gannettnj.com.

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