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Hit-and-run driver who fled from police and killed Brooklyn grandmother was caught two months later

Theo

A Brooklyn hit-and-run driver who killed a 71-year-old pedestrian and injured the victim’s daughter while fleeing police two months ago has been caught, police said Tuesday.

Robert Matthews, 26, was arrested Monday on a number of charges, including manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, fleeing police and hit-and-run following a fatal car crash.

According to police, Matthews was driving the Mazda CX that fatally struck Juanita Vidal and seriously injured her daughter Jessica Vidal, 44, at the intersection of Eldert St. and Knickerbocker Ave. in Bushwick on May 9. Vidal was running errands for her 17-year-old grandson’s birthday when she was hit.

“A police car followed him with blue lights and sirens blaring,” 56-year-old witness Sandra Villman told the Daily News. “The impact was like a bang, like an explosion, and I realized the car had hit two people.”

The NYPD Highway Patrol is investigating after a pedestrian was fatally struck by a motorist who fled the scene of the accident at the corner of Knickerbocker Avenue and Eldert Street in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News)
NYPD officers are investigating after a pedestrian was fatally struck by a driver who fled the scene at the corner of Knickerbocker Avenue and Eldert Street on May 9. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News)

According to police, officers attempted to stop Matthews for a traffic violation, but he sped away, ignored two stop signs before the fatal accident and then collided with an unoccupied parked car.

The Mazda driver crashed into the Halsey St. subway station on the L line.

Juanita Vidal was taken by paramedics to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center but could not be saved. Her daughter, who suffered a punctured lung and seven broken ribs, was taken to Elmhurst Hospital in critical condition and is recovering.

The NYPD Highway Patrol is investigating after a pedestrian was fatally struck by a motorist who fled the scene of the accident at the corner of Knickerbocker Avenue and Eldert Street in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, on Thursday, May 9, 2024. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News)
NYPD officers are investigating after a pedestrian was fatally struck by a driver who fled the scene at the corner of Knickerbocker Avenue and Eldert Street on May 9. (Gardiner Anderson for New York Daily News)

“We tried to cross the street and realized the car didn’t stop at the stop sign. So we tried to go forward or backward,” the daughter told the Daily News, wincing in pain in her hospital bed shortly after her mother’s death. “It happened so fast. It was like we went into shock.”

“We got hit,” she added. “After that, all I remember is lying on the ground and there were a lot of people around me. That’s all I remember.”

Police said Matthews, who lives in East New York, has five previous arrests, and records show he was paroled last October after serving more than a year for weapons possession.

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