NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – An alleged hit-and-run driver was charged Tuesday with killing a 71-year-old woman and injuring her daughter, who he allegedly mowed down while fleeing cops in Brooklyn, just days before Mother's Day.
Robert Matthews, 26, was arrested on Monday and is facing 18 counts on various charges connected to the deadly crash.
On May 9, officers responded to Eldert Street and Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick at 5:02 p.m., where 71-year-old Juanita Vidal and a 44-year-old woman were unconscious, unresponsive and suffering from trauma to the body and head.
Vidal, who lived around the corner from where she was hit, was rushed to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center and pronounced dead, police said. Her 44-year-old daughter was critically injured.
An investigation by the NYPD's Highway District Collision Investigation Squad found that before the collision, police were attempting to stop a 2024 Mazda CX-5, and Matthews instead fled northbound from Wilson Avenue to Eldert Street at an elevated speed to evade the cops.
Matthews allegedly blew through two stop signs at the Knickerbocker Avenue intersection, swerving to the left to avoid an uninvolved vehicle traveling westbound.
In the chaos, the Mazda struck the two victims as they crossed from the northeast to northwest corner of Eldert Street, and then crashed into a parked and unoccupied 2011 Chevrolet van.
Matthews allegedly hopped out of the car after the collision and ran northbound on Eldert Street. Police arrested him on Monday.
Vidal's death was ruled a homicide, according to officials.
Matthews was charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault, unlawful fleeing of a police officer in a motor vehicle, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, leaving the scene of an accident with injuries, reckless endangerment, obstructing governmental administration, aggravated unlicensed operation, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, failure to obey a traffic device, unsafe turn/fail to signal, and failure to stop at a stop sign.
