Michael Colangelo of Huntington Station, Long Island, was driving the rented sports car when it crashed on his wedding night.
The NYPD groom who was killed when a Maserati went off the road Sunday was behind the wheel of the rented sports car, investigators said Wednesday.
Michael Colangelo and Det. John M. Martinez both died in the crash, which tragically took place on Colangelo's wedding night.
Police initially believed Martinez was behind the wheel when it veered off a two-lane country road, slammed into a tree and flipped over, authorities said.
Now, authorities say 31-year-old Colangelo was driving, the Poughkeepsie Journal reported.
"As far as we can tell they were taking this car out for a ride," New York State Police Maj. Pierce Gallagher said Monday. "I feel comfortable saying that the speed was excessive."
A third person who was reportedly in the back seat of the car suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Investigators are waiting on toxicology and autopsy reports.
Colangelo was a 10-year veteran of the department and was an emergency services K-9 officer. Martinez had 16 years on the force and was assigned to the 84th precinct in Brooklyn. He was a married father of two.
Both officers lived on Long Island.
Sunday's crash occurred at about 11:30 p.m., about a mile from the Full Moon Resort, where Colangelo had married longtime girlfriend Katherine Berger, who became a wife and a widow on the same day.
The speed limit on Oliveria Road, where the accident happened, is 40 mph. It is an unlit, rural highway with winding twists and turns.
Long Island neighbor Patti Orsini told Newsday that Colangelo was "very friendly, very outgoing."
The Rev. Michael Lopez, a NYPD chaplain, met with Martinez's fellow officers Monday. "He was a great, outstanding guy and they love him," the pastor told The Associated Press.
His brother, Thomas Martinez, said the detective was "a good dad and a good husband" who spent his off-hours with his family. Being a cop "was what he wanted to do ever since he was a little kid."
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