Police Thursday night caught up with a driver who allegedly fled the scene of a crash that killed a 59-year-old woman.
The crash occurred at Chapel and East Streets around 11 p.m.
Here’s what happened, according to police spokesman Officer David Hartman:
The two eventual victims — Diane Benedetto and Jack Benedetto, who’s 60 — were traveling on a motorcycle. (He was driving it.) The motorcycle crashed with a sedan, whose driver fled the scene.
A witness told cops the driver had traveled to a nearby scrap yard and abandoned the car. The witness also decribed the driver.
The cops found the car, which had damage “consistent with the crash being investigated.”
They also found the alleged driver, a 35-year-old Atwater Street man who at first lied about his name and who “exhibited signs suggested he was intoxicated.” The car contained a Modelo beer 18-pack, the cans all opened and empty. “His shirt was covered with vomit.”
The driver told cops he wasn’t driving but he does own the car. At one point he said he was the lone occupant in the car; other times he said he couldn’t remember the full number of people in the car.
The victims were taken to the hospital, where Diane Benedetto was pronounced dead.
The police department’s crash team has launched an investigation. The cops for now have charged the sedan driver with a variety of motor vehicle,assault, and manslaughter offenses, with additional charges possible depending on the investigation’s outcome.
This is so tragic and hits close to home for me and my wife. That could have been us. This will be a slam dunk for the accident recon cops. Really nothing challenging for them based upon the condition of the car driver,
unlike other pedestrian fatalities that seem to involve a lot more creative thinking.