The Pittsburgh fashion industry is mourning Jacinta Stevens, a promising model who was killed last week when her car crashed into the icy Monongahela River.
North Hills fashion designer Eva Dixon will always remember the 31-year-old mother of two in a single outfit: the striking, emerald halter-top gown Dixon designed and Stevens wore in 2025 while strutting for cameras at a Johnstown Fashion Week event. The dress, cut low in the back, accentuated Stevens’ tall, athletic figure.
“A lot of times, when I do shows, I’ll let the models pick what they want to wear, because when they like what they’re wearing, they walk like they like it,” said Dixon, 60. “And with that dress, she was full of energy. I think that was some of the spark behind her in this industry.”
In addition to Stevens’ energetic personality, the Penn Hills woman, who grew up as the second oldest of five children in Pittsburgh’s East End, will be remembered for her nurturing instincts and the impact she had on those around her, according to her mother, Marla Glover.
“My baby was loved — she was a whole vibe,” Glover, 50, of Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood told TribLive. “She was definitely a sweet soul. She was me times two — maybe times three.”
Pennsylvania State Police said they don’t know what caused Stevens to lose control of her Ford Explorer on the Parkway East last Thursday afternoon then veer across three lanes of traffic before striking a snowbank and plunging 120 feet into the icy Monongahela River.
Three divers from Pittsburgh’s River Rescue broke through the Mon’s 5-inch-thick surface ice, then pulled Stevens from the driver’s seat after cutting her loose from the seat belt, authorities said. Stevens’ car, heavily damaged, landed on all four wheels. A diver said it looked like it was parked on the river’s floor under 20 feet of water.
First responders rushed Stevens to UPMC Presbyterian, where she later died.
‘Shocking news’
Stevens held several jobs when not on the runway. She worked alongside her mother in a Downtown hotel and also briefly in real estate.
At the time of the crash, she was in her second month working as a housing specialist with the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.
Tributes quickly poured in via social media after news broke of her death.
“A loving, fun, caring mother of two, Jacinta was a beautiful soul who embraced life for 31 years and had a natural passion for modeling, capturing images with grace and confidence,” someone wrote on Facebook.
“Shocking news in the Pittsburgh Fashion industry,” Corwin Hall, a self-described “digital creator” from Pittsburgh, posted last week. “A good model has passed away. Jacinta Stevens, Cinna Stevens. She was a great model, a great mother and a great friend. She (will) be truly missed in the fashion world.”
A GoFundMe page raising money for Stevens’ two children — a boy, 11, and girl, 7 — had topped $26,000 by Wednesday afternoon.
Stevens grew up mostly in East Liberty and was in one of the final classes to attend Peabody High School in the city’s East End before officials shuttered it in 2011, her family said. Stevens’ mother had graduated from the same school in 1994.
Stevens transferred to Pittsburgh Milliones 6-12 in the city’s Hill District. She played on the high school’s volleyball team and graduated in 2012.
Stevens attended an Allegheny County Common Pleas Court hearing on the day of the crash for a dispute with her landlord, online records show.
The landlord extended Stevens’ lease and later donated more than $4,000 to the GoFundMe campaign launched for Stevens’ children.
Residents who lived near Stevens’ Frankstown Road home — and around her previous addresses in Homewood — had little to say about Stevens. Nobody answered the door Wednesday morning at her single-family home.
‘She had a presence’
It was the runway, peers and family said, that defined Stevens. She shined brightest in front of the camera’s lens.
Modeling agency scouts approached Stevens one day when the then-teenager was working at a Piercing Pagoda shop in a Pittsburgh-area mall, Glover said. She started taking modeling lessons around age 18.
Camillya Taylor, a fashion designer who runs Johnstown Fashion Week, first met Stevens in 2024 while planning for a James Bond-themed fashion show at a Downtown Pittsburgh restaurant.
“We did a casting call, and she stood out right away. Right away,” said Taylor, 49, of Johnstown. “She had a presence. A lot of times, these models, they mimic each other. They all want the same look. But Jacinta had her own look — and it made her more beautiful.”
Stevens again hit the runway in a second James Bond-themed show in 2025 at a Cranberry-area country club, designers said.
To Prince Williams, Stevens was “quiet, respectful.”
A model himself, the East Liberty man started producing runway shows and coaching other models — including Stevens — about five years ago. He said Stevens took direction well and appeared hungry to learn more about modeling.
Models who work together often become close friends, Williams said.
Stevens stood out, though, for how nurturing she was, and for being willing to “take younger models under her wing,” he added. She frequently shuttled other models to area events.
“After a while when you get into the community, it’s a lot of the same shows, a lot of the same models. It becomes like a family,” said Williams, 34. “These girls, they look after each other like sisters.”
Stevens’ career was on the ascent, several people said.
Dixon, the North Hills dressmaker, spoke with Stevens two days before her death, encouraging the model to take part in a New York City runway show scheduled to open next week.
“We never really got to the point where she agreed to it,” Dixon said Tuesday. “The opportunities were there for her … and she really, really wanted it.”
Deja vu
Others mourned Stevens this week, but for other reasons.
Longtime Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Stern was in Buenos Aires visiting his daughter last week when he heard about the fatal crash. It brought him right back to January 1984, when a Pittsburgh colleague of his died in a similar crash on the Parkway East.
David Tuma, a 44-year-old electrical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was killed when his Volkswagen Rabbit skidded on ice on the Parkway East and crashed over two traffic barriers, according to media reports from the era.
The car cruised down a 50-foot embankment, hit a tree and then slid into the Mon.
Stern recalled sitting in a committee meeting when they got word that Tuma had been involved in the accident.
Stern, then in his late 30s, was six years Tuma’s junior.
“We were all just kind of in shock,” Stern said during a What’s App call Tuesday from Argentina. “This was a very shocking thing — not so much that we were close in age, just that he was as young as he was.”
He read an online news article last week about Stevens’ fatal crash — and it blasted him with deja vu.
“When I read about it, my first reaction was, ‘Yeah. This is just like the accident with Dave Tuma,’ ” Stern said.
State Trooper Rocco Gagliardi said authorities are hesitant to define that stretch of the Parkway East — which runs through the city’s Bluff neighborhood, between the 10th Street and Birmingham bridges — as problematic or crash-prone.
“We cover a lot of interstates, a lot of streets,” Gagliardi said during a Friday news conference about Stevens’ death. “There are a lot of hot spots. But I wouldn’t call two accidents in 40 years a trouble area.”
Honoring her memory
Glover, Stevens’ mother, is not sure what’s next.
The family has paid for Stevens’ funeral. They’re talking about how to plan a “celebration of life” event for Stevens. But Glover remains most focused on raising money through her GoFundMe campaign to find long-term housing for Stevens’ orphaned children.
“This is strictly helping those babies — because they need it,” she said.
Glover paused.
“(Stevens) had wanted to be a model since she was a teenager,” she said. “I told her, as long as I had breath in my body, she was gonna be supported.”
Dixon said she, too, feels a need to keep Stevens’ memory alive. She is thinking about funding a Pittsburgh-area scholarship or similar program for “aspiring models” in Stevens’ name.
The North Hills fashion designer said she hasn’t worked out all the details just yet. But she knows one thing that will be central to the effort.
“I’d like to do something, in particular, with that green dress — because she loved it.”