The Newburgh teenager who was killed in a car crash on Monday night was due to start his senior year of high school the next day, according to his aunt, who described him as a “fantastic kid” with a “heart of gold.”
Kadin Brown, 17, died on Monday at 9:19 p.m. after he and a friend, Steven Shelley, 23, crashed while driving on Route 69, also known as Hampden Road, in Carmel.
Brown was supposed to begin his senior year at Hampden Academy the following day. In addition to attending classes at Hampden Academy, he participated in the welding program through United Technologies Center in Bangor.
He was considering military service after graduation, following in the footsteps of his uncle, a retired Marine, according to his aunt, Amanda Eaton of Portland.
Shelley, who was driving a 2003 Nissan sedan, worked at a Dunkin’ Donuts in the same Newburgh building as the Dysart’s Travel Stop where Brown worked. The two had become friends, and were driving together after leaving work when the crash occurred, Eaton said.
Brown loved country music, especially artists like Kane Brown, as well as cooking ramen and dumplings, riding ATVs and dirt bikes, and working on cars, like his 2022 Nissan Sentra, which his mother Jessica had recently bought him to keep him safe.
“He was very proud of that car,” Eaton said. She let him drive her car after his uncle taught him how to drive a manual transmission, and took pride when he only stalled once while driving on a hill in Portland.
Family was also important to Brown, she said.
In addition to his mother and her partner, he left behind a sibling, Conner, whom he was “an excellent brother to,” as well as a girlfriend, Tori, whom he loved very much, Eaton said.
“He was an incredibly caring and sweet young man, an amazing son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin, boyfriend and friend to many people grieving his passing,” she said.
The family will host a memorial service at Bread of Life Church in Newburgh on Sept. 10, at 2 p.m., and are crowdfunding to pay for cremation and funeral services.
