Metro

Teen staffer killed by tractor-trailer while walking home from Dylan’s Candy Bar

The Bronx girl who was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer after leaving her job at a famed Upper East Side candy shop was a brilliant student who dreamed of becoming a lawyer, her devastated family said today.

“I lost my baby!” cried Joy Clarke, the mother of 16-year-old Renee Thompson, a Big Brothers/Big Sisters volunteer who hoped to attend Howard University after graduating from Coalition School for Social Change in Manhattan next year.

“She was so promising, my baby was so promising. She was an exceptional writer, scored the highest,” Clarke said.

The teen was killed yesterday at 10:18 p.m. when a tractor trailer heading west on East 60th Street made a wide right turn north onto Third Avenue, striking her as she was crossing Third Avenue from east to west.

She had just finished her shift at Dylan’s Candy Bar, a sweets boutique owned by Dylan Lauren, daughter of designer Ralph Lauren.

The girl’s body was so badly mangled from the accident authorities would not even let Clarke identify it.

“My baby was beyond recognition. I couldn’t see my baby!” she wailed outside her apartment on Undercliff Avenue in Morris Heights as relatives consoled her, rubbing her hair.

Cousin Jenelle Bolling, 32, said the ambitious teen planned to take courses at Hunter College during her last year of high school to get a head start on her higher education.

“She had the warmest heart. There’s nothing bad you could say about her.

Renee’s brother Gregory emotionally recalled walking his kid sister home from school.

“I used to walk her home from school and buy her candy. Then she started working at Dylan’s and started buying me candy! This is a tough time,” he said.

“She was a scholar, she was good at arguing. She was set on going to Howard University. She was doing very well. She was part of the Big Sister Big Brother program as a mentor. An incredible sister, very pretty, a good person,” her brother added.

The candy store – featured on the TV shows “Gossip Girl,” “Cake Boss” and “Project Runway” – closed today as reeling employees praised their co-worker, who’d been a cashier there for about six months.

“She was a good person. She worked really hard. She was a good kid, a really joyful person. She didn’t deserve to die like that. She was always [working] on the floor” said one young man.

“We are just dealing with it at this time,” said a female employee through a locked door.

A sign in the window said the shop would reopen tomorrow.

Customers said they were disappointed but completely understood why the shop would close.

“We traveled to get here, we had to take a train. We like candy, they have a lot of candy. But it’s just so sad, I totally understand that they wouldn’t open, I’m sure everyone’s really upset,” said Dave Gervalvi, an artist visiting from Connecticut with his teenage daughter and her friend.

The 35-year-old trucker, whom cops did not identify, remained at the scene of the accident and was not charged.