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 64-year-old woman was struck and fatally injured while walking home from a Target store in Maryland. The driver involved in the crash fled the scene, authorities said.
The Baltimore County Police Department identified the victim as Melissa Nocho. The suspect in the hit-and-run remains at large.
Nocho was walking along the 1700 block of Reisterstown Road in Pikesville, a Baltimore County community northwest of Baltimore, on the evening of Sept. 24. Her family said she had been returning home after visiting the Target store on Reisterstown Road.
“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.”
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Officers were called to the area around 9:15 p.m. after receiving reports that a pedestrian had been struck by a vehicle, according to police. They found Nocho injured at the scene and determined that the driver had left without stopping.
Nocho was taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries. She died on Sept. 30, police said.
Investigators identified the vehicle as a black Hyundai Elantra. Police have released an image of the sedan along with a photo of the person believed to be driving it.
As the investigation continues, Lewis and Nocho’s other relatives are waiting for the driver to be identified and held accountable.
“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 told the television station. Nocho was a mother, grandmother and aunt, she said. “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.”
