Woman, 32, arrested over fatal hit-and-run of Netflix star Sara Burack in Hamptons
A 32-year-old Virginia woman has been arrested in connection with a fatal hit-and-run incident that claimed the life of a popular Netflix actress, authorities said.
Amanda Kempton was charged with leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident in connection to the hit-and-run death of Million Dollar Beach House star Sara Burack, according to the Southampton Town Police Department.
Burack, 40, a real estate agent and former reality television personality was struck by a vehicle shortly before 3:00 am on Montauk Highway near Villa Paul Restaurant in Hampton Bays, New York.
Emergency responders found her critically injured at the scene, and she later died at Stony Brook University Hospital.
The vehicle involved fled the scene, prompting a large-scale search by local and state authorities.
Following an extensive manhunt led by the Southampton Town Police Department and the New York State Police Accident Reconstruction Unit, Kempton was taken into custody.
She has been charged with leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident resulting in death, a Class D felony under New York State law.
If convicted, she faces up to four years in prison.
Law enforcement officials have not yet disclosed details about how Kempton was identified as a suspect.
Kempton is scheduled to be arraigned on Saturday as the investigation remains active, according to the New York Post.
Public officials have urged anyone with additional information about the incident to contact Southampton Town Police, as the full circumstances surrounding the event are still under investigation, local outlet, Dan's Papers reported.
Burack was a licensed real estate broker with experience in the luxury real estate market.
In addition to her professional accomplishments, she gained national visibility as a cast member on the Netflix series Million Dollar Beach House.
She appeared on Netflix's Million Dollar Beach House, which ran for one season in 2020. The show pitted real estate agents against each other in a 'fierce' competition to close deals on luxury homes in the Hamptons
Burack was also active in charitable work, including fundraising for leukemia research and animal rescue initiatives.
Her sudden death has elicited an outpouring of grief from friends, former colleagues, and members of the entertainment and real estate communities.
'I want people to remember she was an amazing person who really cared for people,' close family friend and fellow realtor Paulette Corsair told Newsday.
'She was a hardworking real estate agent who was there for others. She was loved greatly by her friends and a close family.'
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The American comedian admitted that during one jaunt, he was left feeling deathly ill after performing a taboo sex act on another partygoer. 'There was also a time I ate *** on the beach and then got really sick,' he confessed. 'So it's not a place you want to eat *** and get some sort of *** eating related disease on the beach,' Matt continued. 'It's so funny because you're like, "Wow, I've never felt so alive", and then I've never felt so dead". He finished: 'So yeah, I'm out there being a full gay man on that beach, and that comes with its maladies and successes.' Daniel Nardichio's Friday night underwear party is just one of Fire Island's legendary - and raucous - get togethers. It's been hosted in the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove for more than 20 years, first beginning in the 90s. The underwear party is described as a 'rite of passage' on the island, where guests ditch their clothes at the door before a night of fun begins. On Reddit, one previous attendee wrote: 'I found it to be a mix of sexual and not. 'There is a back room for hooking up, although I've seen guys give **** in the middle of the dance floor.' A second added: 'I've been a number of times. Always fun, and your experience can be different depending on what you're looking for. 'Everybody is wearing underwear or jocks, and most people look great. You can dance with friends, chat and flirt with the throngs of boys on the patio, or go be scandalous in the back. 'There's also often a masseur giving table rubs. Very much a choose your own adventure kind of place.' The Pines Party is another staple event in the Fire Island calendar and, for many, is the most anticipated event of the summer, lasting from 10pm until sunrise. A TYPICAL WEEKEND AWAY IN NEW YORK'S 'GAY DISNEYLAND' - FIRE ISLAND A typical Fire Island party week, as recalled on the Finding Fire Island podcast by Pines veteran Brian Moylan. THURSDAY Typically, most people arrive for a weekend away on Thursday night, which is 'pretty chill'. FRIDAY According to Brian, Friday mornings are also for 'chilling out and going to the beach'. In the evening, at around 7pm, everyone will attend the 'tea party' before going home and making dinner. At around midnight, people tend to head to head to the famous 'underwear party' at Cherry Grove, which has been running for more than 20 years. SATURDAY On Saturdays, people tend to wake up late after Friday's underwear party. Brian said you will then 'talk to all your housemates, "who did you f***, where did you go", blah blah blah.' After recovering from the antics of the night before, people will go to the beach. At around 3pm is when the pool parties start. Brian says people will then 'go around town.' He said: 'If you hear music, just pop in and then you just stay and eat their food.' After going to tea, people go out again at around midnight and 'come home god knows when'. SUNDAY On Sunday, partygoers either 'recover' on the island or take the ferry home. It's also show kids night. Theatre director Ben Rimalower says there's a theme every year, such as Alice In Wonderland. 'There's this intense techno music, it's very electronic. It really does get inside your bloodstream,' he recalled on the Finding Fire Island podcast. 'It's very sexy but very intimidating and intense, everybody's drinking and so many people are on all kinds of drugs and there's so much sex going on.' Also an important part of island culture is the legendary 'tea' parties, that take place in the afternoon, before the main fun begins. Tea typically takes place between 5pm to 7pm and is where the formalities begin, and people begin to revive from their hangovers from the night before. One reveller recalled: 'Tea is sort of where you go to be seen and to see everybody on the island. Fire Island you're seeing the same people again all over the week. 'It's where you go to mix and mingle with people. It's the ritualistic end of every Fire Island day, and beginning to every Fire Island night.' Fire Island first became seen as a 'haven' for LGBTQ people in the 1950s. Bob 'Rose' Levine', a legendary drag performer in Cherry Grove, first came to the island for a season in 1956 and paid only $5 a night to rent a bed. At this time, the island had no newspapers and no telephones, becoming a 'kind of hideaway' for those who visited. Bob, who is now 90, said visitors would say they were going 'to the Hamptons' as an excuse - as 'if you said Fire Island, it labelled you as gay'. In the 1960s, however, Fire Island first began making headlines due to various police raids. Those who were caught were charged with felony sodomy and would see their names published on the front pages of newspapers the next day - with the power to ruin careers in a country that was yet to decriminalise homosexuality. Bob recalled: 'Everything exploded in the 60s when we had raids from the mainland. 'They raided the walks. They were young policemen in plain clothes that looked like everyone else. 'They were young and good looking. I was never arrested, but I knew people that were. If you touched them, they arrested you. 'All of those newspapers, with the headlines on the front page, listing all the names of the guys.' According to Jack Parlett in his book Fire Island: Love, Loss and Liberation in an American Paradise, the 1970s brought a boom in queer culture and, subsequently a boom in visitors following the Stonewall Riots in the summer of 1969. He writes: 'The parties were legendary and the guest lists illustrious. For a time it must have seemed like a summer soiree that would never end.' In 1977, Calvin Klein bought a beachfront home on Fire Island after divorcing his first wife. He recalled in 2013: 'It was amazing, the ultimate hedonist house. I mean, it was made for sex.' Photographer Meryl Meisler previously recalled the wild chaos that embodied Fire Island in the 1970s. She captured some of the rowdiest house parties, showing attendees wearing little to no clothing and performing wild sex acts. 'The parties were really wild, they were definitely very fun summers to be apart of,' Meisler told 'The club scene was very vibrant. The LGBTQ scene was thriving and thrilling. It's still a haven. 'Disco was in full swing and it was a blast. I would come out every weekend during those summers and would bring my camera. 'It was a time in New York history and the world where it was post-Stonewall, Women's Liberation, music changed, pre-AIDS/HIV - it was a time of innocence and I was part of it.' 'They were happy to be photographed. You know, life is a beach for them and it's very pleasant. Fire Island is an oasis and it's a Long Island treasure that's very fragile and very small.' Her photos included the Ice Palace - a popular club where tons of LGBTQ people partied. The venue has hosted the Miss Fire Island contest since 1966, where men dress in drag costume to compete for the title on Labor Day weekend. 'The Ice Palace still plays disco and there are still wonderful things happening in Fire Island all the time,' Meisler added. She described attending one Star Wars themed house party in Fire Island Pines as 'one of the wildest parties I have ever gone to', adding: 'You were just very free to do anything and people had no rules.' Indeed, the island was described in Andrew Holleran's 1978 novel Dancer From The Dance as a place for 'madness, for hot nights, kisses, and herds of stunning men'. But the 1980s and 1990s would bring another dip in Fire Island's fortunes - and marked a period of desperate suffering for many loyal islanders. During this period, an outbreak of AIDs devastated the population, and plunged those remaining into mourning. Speaking on the Finding Fire Island podcast, Bob recalled how the outbreak changed the structure of the island forever. He recalled the initial news of the outbreak spreading: 'It was a complete change from the early days and then the party stopped. Cherry Grove was changed during the AIDS epidemic. 'All of our friends were dying, sick, they didn't come out anymore. They left Fire Island, they went home to their families so there was a lot of changeover.' These days, Fire Island's party reputation is booming - and houses that were worth $100,000 just ten years ago now have a price tag of well over a million dollars. It's still the place to go for weekend getaways, and has found a new generation of followers on TikTok. One visitor, Art Buzrukavenko, who has more than a million followers, visited Fire Island last week. In one video, he wrote: 'Pov you're arriving in the gayest island in the USA', alongside a snapshot of him kissing his boyfriend. TikTok users @ also commented that Fire Island is like 'gay Disneyland'. They said: 'Fire Island is like summer camp. There's music always happening, there's activities. There are gays that arrive by the bus loads. There are underwear parties and the beach! It's like a summer camp.' The island has also begun to attract influencers, drawn to its 'aesthetic' white beaches, seaside cafes and independent shops. The account @whenonlongisland shared: 'Just a ferry ride away from Long Island, is a beautiful area called Fire Island.' They praised it for 'the restaurants and cute little shops', and said 'we wandered down the streets of Fire Island, which are all stunning, and the houses are so cute.' Influencer Brooke Mooney, who is 24 and from Long Island, has also paid a trip there, and concluded 'Fire Island is the cutest little thing', after going hat shopping and visiting cafes. Fire has cemented its place in popular culture, having been visited by creative thinkers from the 20th century including WH Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, Frank O'Hara and Oscar Wilde. Indeed, Fire Island is said to have inspired Capote's 1958 novella Breakfast At Tiffany's, which was written on the island, while Auden owned a cottage in Cherry Grove in the late 1940s. It's also just a place where people can just be themselves with the sexually liberated way of lifestyle on offer. Christopher Rawlins, an architect and founder of Pines Modern, recently told The Guardian: 'My most vivid memory of my first visit here in the late 90s is being able to hold my boyfriend's hand in public without fear.' Speaking on the Finding Fire Island podcast, Ben Rimmalower said: 'I don't know if the younger generations feel differently than I do but I am not comfortable - even in New York City - if somebody wants to hold my hand or make out with me on the street. I have a fear I'm going to get gay bashed or something. 'I think there's a whole level of not being safe that I experience in the world always - and not on Fire Island. 'I think that's part of why, when I get on the boat, there's just this level of relaxation, of this tension that's lifted from me' 'For my entire time I'm there, it's such a powerful feeling.' Comedian Matt Rogers summarised: 'It's a choose your own adventure, you can host dinner parties in your house with friends, or find a stranger to hook up with on the beach.' Never, it seems, has a place been so sure of its own identity - and Fire Island will no doubt remain a safe haven for many in the years to come.
