A 48-year-old Filipino woman has died after a hit-and-run incident in San Jose, California last week.
According to investigators, the victim, identified as Marianne Natividad, was crossing Nieman Boulevard on April 11 (California time) when she was hit by a 2000 Toyota 4Runner driven by 65-year-old Delilah Paray, TV station CBS San Francisco reported.
Police said that based on a CCTV footage that recorded the incident, Paray stopped, got out of her car, and walked up to the victim who was still alive at the time, East Bay Times reported. But instead of calling for help, Paray allegedly returned to her car and drove away.
TV station NBC Bay Area also reported that other drivers struck the victim without knowing it was a body.
Investigators found Paray’s Toyota parked on a nearby street. She was arrested and is detained at the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose. She will be charged with a hit-and-run felony.
“The victim might still be alive if the driver had stopped and called for help, as she was required to do,” San Jose police Sgt. Enrique Garcia told Mercury News.
According to a GoFundMe account dedicated to raising funds to bring the victim’s remains to Dubai, Natividad was only in the U.S. to visit friends.
“She was supposed to be reunited with her family in June, and start a new life in Dubai where her family recently immigrated. She is survived by her husband and two children,” the page reads.
The GoFundMe account has garnered more than US$11,000 as of this article’s posting.
