Grieving father calls for action after racing crash claims daughter and fiancée’s lives

By Ashley Graham

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    FORT MYERS, Florida (WBBH) — Hannah Casciano, 25, and two-year-old Xaila Atkin were Aaron Atkin’s angels.

“There’s no words to describe the beautiful powerhouse, angelic, unique person that they both were,” he said. “There really isn’t.”

He said they were, and still are, the shining light of his life and a light that was put out too soon.

On Sept. 24, 2022, Atkin had breakfast with his family and then left for work.

“I had no clue when I closed that door,” Atkin said, “that it would be the last time that I saw them.”

He said Hannah, Xaila and two other people were driving from Cape Coral to a wedding later that day. They were driving south on a bridge when another car speeding north crossed the median and hit their car. Atkin said it took hours for him to find out what happened to his family.

“I was greeted by two of our law enforcement and some of my family,” he said, “where I was told… that due to reckless driving and racing, my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Xaila and her beautiful mother Hannah were killed.”

Xaila and Hannah were two of four people killed in that accident. A driver speeding in the other direction crossed the median and hit their car. That driver also died. Hannah’s brother was the only survivor.

“I lost everything,” Atkin said. “Everything that was important to me.”

Witnesses told investigators they spotted two cars racing on the bridge before the deadly accident, according to an investigative report. One witness’ in-car radar showed the cars were going 130 miles per hour.

“Innocent families, children, lives are taken,” Fort Myers Police Department acting captain Shawn Yates said, “just because you wanted to drive fast on a roadway when it wasn’t safe.”

Racing is a problem that authorities have been working hard to solve. Fort Myers police said they’re seeing more unofficial car meets that sometimes lead to speeding incidents.

“A lot of these things are pop-up type things,” Yates said.

He said most times, these pop-ups happen in industrial areas off the road, but sometimes drivers find themselves in regular traffic and race anyway.

“It can happen in the middle of the interstate, in the middle of the local roadway, over the bridge, are some of the areas that we’ll see that,” Yates said. “There’s great risk with speed on the roadways. The speed limits are in place for a reason.”

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office also created a street racing task force this year. So far, it’s made roughly 40 arrests.

Florida Highway Patrol data shows nearly 180 citations written for street racing and stunt driving in the last five years. Most of the drivers cited are young, between 16 and 24 years old. Yates says it’s not just young drivers causing the issue.

“There’s a variety, and I think it’s a car lover’s thing, the need for speed,” he said. “And that can be generationally, with the younger crowd but also the middle and older crowd still like their sports cars and getting down the road too fast.”

Atkin said there needs to be more action. He said there’s nothing wrong with wanting to race, but he wants to see drivers do it away from traffic in safer spaces like a dedicated racetrack. He’s calling on county leaders to step up for young drivers and young families like his.

“Whether that’s promoting our local track or putting something in place as a red light, speed cameras,” he said. “That’s something that is a start.”

Yates said drivers with a need for speed should stick to safer spots built to handle it.

“If you want to be involved in these speed-type competitions, there are definitely areas where you can safely do these type of road races,” he said, “at structured sites and track where they have safety measures in place. The streets are absolutely not the place to do this.”

“We all need to stand together because it’s not changing,” Atkin said. “It hasn’t changed.”

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