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Hit-and-run accidents are considered a serious crime in part because they prevent the accident victim from recovering damages from the negligent driver.
A woman that is alleged to have caused a fatal hit-and-run pedestrian accident in the Philadelphia area has been arrested by police. During questioning by investigators, the woman allegedly admitted to causing the accident.
The woman stood in front of a Superior Court judge wearing an orange jail-issued jumpsuit this week and was arraigned on charges that she allegedly left the scene of a motor-vehicle accident that resulted in death, and that she also hindered apprehension by police.
The accused woman’s sister said that her sibling appeared to be shaken after arriving at her house last Thursday with a broken headlight on her late model Grand Am. When asked, the woman told her sister that she had been in a fender bender. Her sister told police that she was under the impression the accident involved another car and that she would have taken the woman to the police station had she known the gravity of the accident.
A short distance away, police were responding to a female pedestrian lying on the side of the road that was fatally injured by the passing car. The pedestrian was trying to cross Route 70 after enjoying a lunch break with her boyfriend. The owner of a nearby body shop who witnessed the hit-and-run chased the driver’s car on foot but was unable to get the number of the license plate. The woman later died at the hospital of blunt trauma injury to her head.
Another witness to the accident allegedly identified the woman as the driver of the car and told police where the car was parked. Police also say the woman hid the car in her sister’s garage the first day and placed a large pink decal over the rear window to change its appearance. Police officials acknowledge that she might not have been apprehended but for the witness identification and good police work.
In addition to criminal charges, it is also possible that the woman could face a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of the woman who was killed.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, “Woman is charged in fatal hit-and-run in Camden County,” Darran Simon, Sept. 19, 2011.