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Bronx Church To Hold Vigil For Crash Victims

NEW YORK (CBS 2) -- A prayer vigil was scheduled to be held Monday night at a church in the Bronx that lost its bishop and other leaders in a deadly crash over the weekend.

Services were held at the Joy Fellowship Christian Assembly Church in Baychester all day Sunday.

Bishop Simon White, his wife and four other church leaders were killed when the van they were riding in blew a tire and rolled over on the New York State Thruway.

Eight other people were injured, some critically.

Church members remembered the victims fondly.

"He was a father to all of us," congregation member Marica Marlon said.

"Bishop White had such an infectious smile," Reverend Jay Gooding, a pastor at a neighboring church, said. "Whenever you saw him, he just ministered to you with his smile."

The victims were on their way to a banquet in upstate New York with members of a sister church.

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