Former Nickelodeon actor Kianna Underwood’s father is in shock after her tragic death. The 33-year-old was killed early Friday morning in a hit-and-run incident in Brooklyn. A New York Police Department spokesperson said that the crash occurred around 6:40 AM as she was crossing an intersection in the Brownsville neighborhood. A black Ford Explorer SUV hit her. While lying in the street, she was then ‘subsequently struck by a black and gray sedan’, NYPD said in a statement. Underwood was pronounced dead at the scene.
Both drivers fled and are yet to be arrested. Their identities have not been revealed yet.
Kianna Underwood’s father breaks silence
Meanwhile, Underwood’s father shared an emotional reaction, questioning whether anyone showed his daughter compassion in her final moments.
On Saturday morning, Anthony Underwood posted, and later deleted, a message on Facebook. In the post, he recounted an experience that has haunted him since learning of his daughter’s death.
“So this one time [my partner] Tia Ynvme Taylor and I were in the Catskills and we saw this fox on the road,” he wrote.
“I could tell it had been hit. It was a dangerous curved road and I contemplated moving our car into the middle of the road so it wouldn’t get hit again. But before I could do anything someone came around the corner and didnt slow down when I started flashing my highbeams. So the driver ran over the fox, I remember the horror I felt when I saw that,” he continued.
He went on to describe how another passerby stopped to help the injured animal. “Another driver pulled over and picked the fox up who was still alive and put it on the side of the road,” he wrote.
The memory led him to a painful question about his daughter’s final moments. “All I can think about is did anyone show my baby that same compassion, as someone ran her over like roadkill. Did anyone try to comfort my baby as she layed dying in the street alone, or did they just stand around with their phones,” he asked.
Police said Underwood was struck at a marked crosswalk near Pitkin Avenue and Mother Gaston Boulevard. Investigators determined that a black 2021 Ford Explorer SUV, driven by an unidentified individual, crossed the yellow line and was traveling counter to traffic when it hit her, per the NYPD. As she lay in the roadway, she was then hit again by a black-and-gray sedan.
Kianna Underwood rose to fame as a child actor on Season 10 of Nickelodeon’s “All That” in 2005. Earlier, she voiced Fuchsia Glover for 23 episodes of the animated series “Little Bill” from 1999 to 2004.
Her career also included film and stage work. She appeared in The 24 Hour Woman alongside Rosie Perez, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and Patti LuPone, had a small role in Death of a Dynasty starring Kevin Hart, and performed as little Inez during the first national tour of Hairspray in the mid-2000s.