Father of college football player killed in Glen Burnie crash says he lost "my best friend"

BALTIMORE - A community in Glen Burnie is mourning the death of a young football player who was involved in a vehicle crash early Wednesday.

Anne Arundel County Police said Anthony Hinton III, 18, was traveling on Ritchie Highway around 12:30 a.m. when he lost control of a vehicle and collided with a tree. A 17-year-old passenger was also seriously injured.

Hinton played his first season in 2023 as a defensive lineman at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. He graduated from Glen Burnie High School.

"I'm still looking for him to come home," his father Anthony Hinton Jr. told WJZ.

Hinton Jr. said police informed him about his son's death on Wednesday morning.

"That was my best friend, my best friend," Hinton said. "It's going to hurt me to not be able to see him again."

Police said Hinton III was driving in Brooklyn Park when he crossed a raised center median and crashed into a tree off the roadway. He died at the scene, police said.

"Trying to keep my faith in God," mother Jayne Hinton said.

Hinton's death was not the first tragedy in the family. The family's oldest son Dante was found shot to death in a car in east Baltimore in 2023.

"It's a struggle," Jayne Hinton said. "It's a test, but I stand strong. They say you've got to praise Him through the good and the bad, so I praise him through this bad."

Hinton was known affectionately as "Manman," who touched so many in the Glen Burnie community.

"We are all still in shock here at Glen Burnie," said Mike Rudd, the basketball coach at Glen Burnie High School. "We are a very close community and Anthony was very special and already sorely missed."

Hinton Jr. adds that his son will not be forgotten.

"I lost him physically, but he still lives with me mentally and emotionally," Hinton Jr. said. "I didn't lose him, he just went with my father, her dad, my grandmother in Heaven, and his brother. He's always going to be here."