Bill and Susan Kenyon talk about their son Kory, 19, who died in a car accident Tuesday a short distance from their Julian Road home in Warwick.

The Providence Journal Kris Craig

WARWICK — The dozens of grieving friends of Kory Kenyon turned the cul-de-sac on Julian Road into a jammed parking lot with their cars Tuesday afternoon — a funeral procession in waiting.

Inside the crowded ranch home, Bill and Susan Kenyon welcomed them all in with tears and hugs and Bill tried to soften the blow with gentle humor. Like how his 19-year-old son Kory talked of joining the Providence Fire Department before his 21st birthday just so he could beat his father’s first day of service.

Good-natured competition, it seemed, was as much a part of Kenyon tradition as firefighting: “Kory’s grandfather was on the fire department for 25 years,” Bill Kenyon said. “So far I got him beat by a year.”

Kory’s hope of someday joining his father on the same fire truck ended early Tuesday morning, less than two miles from home, when the younger Kenyon’s car failed to negotiate a notorious curve on Church Street.

The sound of the crash brought neighbors into the street.

Patricia Thomas heard it, looked out the window, and yelled to her husband, Bill: “There’s a car in the driveway!”

Bill Thomas, who is 85 and has lived on Church Street for 53 years, sat up in bed and slipped on some pants. In the darkness of midnight he went to the front door and looked out on a grim scene.

Part of a car at least, the front half, had come to rest behind his Jeep Cherokee. The back half had skidded across the street. And on his driveway, a young man, Kory Kenyon, an honors student and athlete who graduated last year from Warwick Veterans Memorial High School, lay bleeding.

The Dows, who live a few houses away, heard the crash, too. Robert Dow had been Kory’s Cub Scout leader. Alex Dow, a friend of Kory’s, recognized the gray Volkswagen Jetta almost immediately and called Kory’s girlfriend while his mother, Paula Dow, studying to be a nurse, ran to Kory’s side.

“She was leaning over him saying, ‘Don’t leave us. Don’t leave us,’ ” Bill Thomas recalled Tuesday. “Hearing that is enough to tear your heart out.”

Kenyon’s car first struck a huge oak tree growing out of the sidewalk — a tree which has been involved in several previous serious accidents, say neighbors and the police. Then it careened into a utility pole 50 yards farther down the street. The impact split the car in half and snapped the pole at its base.

Kenyon, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the Jetta.

Speed probably played a role in the accident, said police Lt. Thomas C. Hannon.

After being notified of the accident by Kenyon’s girlfriend, his family was at the scene within minutes. They rode with him in the ambulance to Rhode Island Hospital, where Kory was pronounced dead.

Investigators were still trying to piece together the last hours of Kenyon’s life, Hannon said. They think Kenyon, who had also made the honor roll in this, his first year at the Community College of Rhode Island where he was studying fire science, had been in the Conimicut area and was heading home shortly after midnight.

“There have been other serious accidents there” at the intersection of Church and Bugbee avenues, Hannon said. “I think it’s something we need to take a look at.” He did not know how many other accidents but said he wanted to gather some statistics.

Bill Thomas said, “There’s been many cars that have hit that tree in the years we’ve been here.” Motorists traveling west on Church Street, as Kenyon was, often seem to take the turn too fast, he said.

“I lost three cars one night,” he said, when a speeding driver misjudged the curve and ended up skidding across his lawn before hitting the vehicles parked in the driveway. “I heard the crash that night and thought a plane had fallen out of the sky.”

In the Kenyon home Tuesday, Bill Kenyon tried hard to put the best face on tragedy.

There was an unusual bond between father and teenage son, he said. They actually enjoyed each other’s company, spending nights surf fishing and days enjoying the outdoors, sometimes hunting together.

“We only had him for 19 years but we were lucky to have him. He was a really good kid.”

With staff reports from Kate Bramson and Tatiana Pina.

tmooney@projo.com