A Queens couple who died when the motorcycle they were riding together collided with an SUV were deeply in love, according to their heartbroken friends.
Alexander Jokanovic, 30, and Tamara Lepodatovic, 35, were riding on Jokanovic’s motorcycle around 4:40 a.m. Oct. 13 when they crashed into a Toyota RAV4 near E. 106th St. and Third Ave. in East Harlem, cops said. Both victims died on the spot, according to police.
Jokanovic picked Lepodatovic up from work on his motorcycle when her bartending shift ended late that night, Lepodatovic’s friend told the Daily News. The two often rode together on the motorcycle, sometimes taking Lepodatovic’s miniature dog Smoki along for the ride, the friend said.
“I don’t want to blame him, I don’t want to blame her. It is a very big tragedy, the both of them. They’re not here anymore. It’s devastating for so many people,” Lepodatovic’s friend Ivana Pancic, 34, told The News. “She was that night with Alexsandar on the motorcycle. It’s not because someone make her or she had to do it. She wanted to be there. Maybe this was just destiny. Unforunately we don’t like it, but maybe it was just destiny.”
“It’s unfortunate, but maybe it was destiny for them to go together,” she added.
Lepodatovic immigrated to New York City from Serbia more than six years ago and frequently sent money back to her family, Pancic said, adding Lepodatovic was planning to return to her home country soon to visit her family, especially her father who was sick.
Her body was sent back to Serbia to be buried, Pancic said, and her funeral was set to take place Monday, the friend said.
Alexander Jokanovic, 30, and Tamara Lepodatovic, 35, were killed when they got into a crash with a Toyota RAV4 driver near E. 106th St. and Third Ave. in East Harlem, Manhattan on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
Jokanovic bought Lepodatovic a miniature golden doodle poodle, which she named Smoki after a tiny, bite size snack in Serbia, friends of Lepodatovic said.
“I saw her two and a half weeks before the accident happened. She was passing by (my work) and we were talking about dogs. Her dog’s name Smoki, which is a Serbian snack. But it’s a small size. It’s half of a bite size,” Pancic said.
The couple once travelled to Atlantic City together on Jokanovic’s motorcycle with Smoki in tow, she recalled.
The day before she died, Lepodatovic spent time at dog park with another friend, to whom she shared her plans to go home to Serbia.
“On the day the accident happened, she was with my friend at a dog park. She was telling me that (Lepodatovic) wants to go back to Serbia and she wants to go there to help (her family) them out. To spend some more time with (her father),” Pancic said.
Lepodatovic usually worked at least two or three jobs, and frequently sent money home to her family, Pancic said.
“That girl was such a hard worker. She was working really a lot. Her goal was to save as much as she can money. She was helping her family a lot,” Pancic said.
On top of the money she sent home, Lepodatovic also saved for the future. She recently bought an apartment in her home country.
“She said, I saved some money. I’m wanting to buy something,” Pancic said. “She bought a small apartment next to the river in Serbia next to her place in Kladovo. She was telling me about that for a long time.”
“She was a very smart woman. She was aware of herself. She knew what she wanted from life,” Pancic added.
Pancic believes that Lepodatovic was wearing a helmet when she died, but is not sure if Jokanovic was wearing one. “She was very responsible,” Pancic said. “I think she was the one that had the helmet.”
“She had that amazing great energy that was really, she was pulling the people. People wanted to be around her.”
Alexander Jokanovic, 30, and Tamara Lepodatovic, 35, were killed when they got into a crash with a Toyota RAV4 driver near E. 106th St. and Third Ave. in East Harlem, Manhattan on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
“I would like her family to know that she had a lot of people over here who loved her. A lot of people called to ask what they can do.”
Pancic said she did not know Jokanovic, but thinks he worked as a mover, along with his brother, both of whom were from Montenegro. She believes the brother went back to his country to be with his family after his brother died.
“It was a love story,” another friend and neighbor of Lepadatovic told The News about the victims. “I heard that she really fell in love.”
“When they were separated, he called her and said to her, ‘I miss you. She said, ‘I know, I miss you, too. But where are you now?’ he said, ‘I’m in the apartment.’ (She said), ‘Go out right now.’ So he went out and she told him, ‘Watch to the sky. What do you see there?’ And he said, ‘I see the star.’ And she said, ‘yeah, that’s what I’m watching, too.’ ‘So now, you know that we are together always,” the friend recalled an incident Lepodatovic told her about.
“That’s the place where there is from our tradition, we say goodbye from church. We believe that she is in Heaven,” the friend explained.
Another close friend of Lepodatovic has been unable to sleep since her friend’s death.
“I need to let her go. She deserves to go in peace,” she said.