As two lives converge, one ends tragically in DWI death
Two young lives from two very different worlds collided Wednesday night on Main Street in Buffalo. Christopher Tulumello was driving without a license because of a drunken-driving conviction earlier this year in the same neighborhood.
Amanda S. Knowlton, 23, was a single mother who struggled to support two sons, a 4-year-old and a 9-month-old.
She ended up dead in a hit-and-run accident, and Tulumello ended up behind bars, once again charged with driving while intoxicated — and worse.
Knowlton’s goal was to one day go back to school and get a general equivalency diploma. She had quit high school when she was pregnant with her older son, Isiah, because she was worried students would taunt her.
Tulumello, 21, dropped out of college in October to find himself. He was working 12-hour days in construction and considering going back to college to study finance.
Knowlton’s family, from the city’s Black Rock-Riverside area, has just completed arrangements for her funeral.
Tulumello’s family, from Amherst, has arranged to have Joel L. Daniels, one of Buffalo’s top defense attorneys, represent him.
But at this point, the former Erie Community College student’s life is on hold. He remains locked up in the Erie County Holding Center after not posting $500,000 bail and is due back in City Court at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
Daniel Bass of North Buffalo, who had opened his home to Knowlton on three occasions, recalled, “According to her, she had a battered life. She’d lived in a shelter for a while after she broke up with the father of her first child. She wanted to get her GED, but every time, something came up.”
Knowlton was struck down by a pickup truck at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on Main Street at LaSalle Avenue. She was crossing Main from the west side to the east, taking 4-year-old Isiah to a baby sitter before starting work at 10 as a cocktail waitress.
Tulumello, according to police, was driving north on Main, swerved around a car stopping for a traffic light at LaSalle and struck Knowlton and her son.
Knowlton died of head trauma. Her son suffered a broken arm. A witness said the boy kept saying, “My mommy, my mommy.”
The pickup sped away. Two hours later, Tulumello was detained by Amherst police, who received a tip that he was at a local gasoline station.
Buffalo police arrested him on charges of vehicular manslaughter, vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated, driving without a license and driving without insurance.
He was not charged with passing a red light; Buffalo police are continuing to investigate the accident, including who had the right of way.
On Jan. 20, Tulumello crashed into a tree after drinking vodka and Red Bull energy drinks at the Steer, a University Heights restaurant not far from the University at Buffalo South Campus and the intersection where Wednesday’s fatal accident occurred.
In that case, University police arrested Tulumello at 3 a.m. after he struck the tree in a parking lot at Main Street and Bailey Avenue. He refused a breath test after that accident.
During his Buffalo City Court case, he admitted drinking at the restaurant even though he was supposed to be a designated driver for his companions. But he said he was “too bombed to drive anyone else home,” so he left without them, according to court records. He paid a $300 fine after his Feb. 28 conviction for driving while his ability was impaired.
Knowlton, according to Bass, took a job at the Colonie Lounge on Hertel Avenue because the late hours allowed her to be at home during the day with Isiah and her infant, Sammy. Her job there, he said, was as waitress.
Bass said Knowlton was a devoted mother. His own daughter, Trish Hitchcock, has been a close friend of Knowlton’s since they met as teenagers.
“Amanda definitely had a hard life. She tried to get out of her environment to better herself. She was always afraid she wasn’t good enough to be a mother. She really cared about her kids,” said Bass, of Hartwell Road.
After Knowlton saved enough money, she was able to afford an upper apartment in the same building as Bass, but in June, a kitchen fire left her without a permanent residence, and she stayed in a motel for an extended period before moving in with her older sister, Jennifer, according to Bass.
“I believe Amanda had gone to Grover Cleveland High School before dropping out when she got pregnant with Isiah. She thought people would mock her out,” Bass said.
Hitchcock recalled first meeting Knowlton in Black Rock when they were young teenagers.
“The first time we met, we got into a fistfight, and then we became friends. I was new in the neighborhood, and she didn’t know me,” Hitchcock said of their rocky start.
Hitchcock added that the tragedy for her friend’s family comes two months after Knowlton’s 46-year-old father, George F. Knowlton II, a laborer, died Oct. 2.
Kathy Paradowski, owner of the Colonie, said that Knowlton had worked there for about two years and that she was a reliable employee who was devoted to her children.
“She really had a nice heart. She was a little on the quiet side. She took the job at night to be around for the kids in the day. She loved her kids. She always talked about her son Isiah,” said Paradowski, who described Wednesday night’s tragedy as “terrible, and I’m glad they caught the person.”
Tulumello’s mother, without giving her name, expressed sympathy for the Knowltons, saying that it is a tragedy for everyone involved.
Pointing to a stack of books dealing with finance on the coffee table in the living room of her Getzville Road home, the distraught mother said that her son was reading them and that he planned to eventually return to college to pursue a career in finance.
“He just went down the wrong path,” she said in trying to make sense of the fatal accident.
Efforts to reach Amanda Knowlton’s mother, Mary, who lives in Black Rock, were unsuccessful.
“Mary’s very upset. She told me she called Cellino & Barnes to see if she could have them represent her for her daughter that got killed and they sent a cab out for her,” her neighbor Tim McKenrick said. “The family of the driver already has a classy lawyer to represent him.”
A wake for Knowlton is set from 2 to 7 p.m. Monday, with a funeral service to immediately follow in Lombardo Funeral Home, 885 Niagara Falls Blvd., Amherst.
A fund to assist Knowlton’s sons has been established at M&T Bank under the name of Jennifer Knowlton, the deceased’s older sister.
News Staff Reporters Patrick Lakamp, T.J. Pignataro and Gene Warner contributed to this report.
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