Background: The Target on Reisterstown Road in Pikesville, Maryland (Google Maps). Inset: The suspect wanted in connection with the case (Baltimore County Police Department).
A woman was walking home from a Target in Maryland when a driver hit and killed her — and then drove away, according to authorities.
The Baltimore County Police Department identified the victim as 64-year-old Melissa Nocho. The hit-and-run suspect is still on the loose.
On the evening of Sept. 24, Nocho was walking on the 1700 block of Reisterstown Road in Pikesville, Maryland, an area in Baltimore County northwest of Baltimore. She was heading home from the Target on that road, her family said.
“She was just walking on her way back from Target to her house. She had to cross a busy street on Reisterstown Road. Unfortunately, there was a car that was going very, very fast and it hit her, and she flew 6 feet in the air,” Zariah Lewis, Nocho”s niece, told local NBC affiliate WBAL. “[It’s] disgusting, honestly; I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
The police department said its officers responded to the area at about 9:15 p.m. “for reports of a pedestrian struck by a vehicle.” They arrived to find an injured woman — later identified as Nocho — and learned that she was hit by a vehicle whose driver left the area.
Nocho was brought to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. She was pronounced dead on Sept. 30.
Investigators determined that the vehicle was a black Hyundai Elantra, with police releasing an image of the sedan and the apparent driver.
For now, Lewis and others seeking justice for their family member must wait.
“We all just love on each other so hard, and we loved Melissa the most because she was like the glue of our family,” Lewis continued in comments to the TV station, adding that Nocho was a mother and grandmother as well as an aunt. “She was such a free light spirit. She was so beautiful and full of life. … She just had that aura, she had that energy. You could see God off of her. She was just so bright.”
