Camillus woman dies in fatal motorcycle crash on I-481 in DeWitt

Northbound I-481 stayed closed for hours after a Camillus woman died in a motorcycle crash at the I-690 interchange in DeWitt. DeWitt police said 34-year-old Jaclyn Rittershaus was traveling north when she lost control of the bike, was thrown from it and was struck by an oncoming vehicle. Officers were called to the interchange around 9:45 p.m., and the crash was reported about 9:48 p.m.

The shutdown stretched through a key east-west connector in Onondaga County. Northbound I-481 was closed between Exit 88, the I-690 interchange, and Exit 89 at Kirkville Road, with all northbound lanes closed north of Route 5 and portions of I-690 eastbound also affected. The roadway did not reopen until about 3:20 a.m., leaving commuters, overnight travelers and emergency crews dealing with the fallout of a fatal collision in one of DeWitt’s busiest highway links.

DeWitt police and Manlius police worked the scene, and the investigation remained open after the crash. Investigators have not said what caused Rittershaus to lose control, and anyone with information was asked to contact police as officers continued to reconstruct the sequence that sent her off the motorcycle and into the path of another vehicle.

SUNY Upstate Medical University later identified Rittershaus as one of its students. Her Upstate graduate profile listed her in the neuroscience PhD track and the MD/PhD program, where she was also a graduate ambassador and student seminar presenter. Her research focused on biomechanical strain and optic nerve head astrocyte mitochondria.

Public obituary information identified her as Jaclyn Marie Rittershaus-Powell and listed her birth date as Jan. 12, 1992. Upstate’s MD/PhD program says it has about 36 students, underscoring how deeply a death like this can cut through a small training community as well as a family in Camillus.

New York State’s Department of Motor Vehicles said in December 2025 that fatal crashes and motorcycle fatalities declined statewide in the January-through-October 2025 period compared with the same stretch in 2024. The DeWitt crash added another fatal motorcycle collision to that larger safety picture, on a corridor where a single loss of control turned into an overnight highway closure and a death with consequences far beyond the rider alone.