Background: Surveillance footage captures the moment just before Lillian Sellers is purported to have struck her coworker near their place of employment (Slidell Police Department). Inset: Lillian Sellers (Slidell Police Department).
A Louisiana woman who allegedly backed over her co-worker at a nursing home and then went to work “as if nothing happened” now faces felony charges.
The Slidell Police Department said in a Facebook post that 67-year-old Lillian Sellers was behind bars after she was caught on camera allegedly backing her SUV over an unnamed co-worker. Police said Sellers later returned to the scene to retrieve a piece of her vehicle”s bumper as the alleged victim lay on the ground, suffering from critical injuries. Sellers then allegedly “went to work as if nothing happened.”
Police said paramedics responded to a call on Sunday at around 11 p.m. about a woman who had apparently fallen in the parking lot of Greenbriar Community Care Center in Slidell, in the northern part of the greater New Orleans area. The woman was quickly transported to a hospital, where medical staff determined that her injuries could not have been caused by a fall. When they concluded that the woman’s injuries were consistent with being struck by a vehicle, they called the police.
When police showed up to the nursing home during the early morning hours on Monday, they were shown surveillance video by the nursing home staff. The video showed an SUV “violently” and “recklessly” backing into the alleged victim. Later in the video, a woman — eventually identified as Sellers — got out of the SUV, picked up a broken car part, and then “went to work as if nothing happened.”
According to police, when Sellers got to work, she allegedly told her co-workers that a “woman fell in the parking lot.” Nursing home employees then went out to help their injured co-worker, not knowing how she allegedly “fell.”
Once it was determined that Sellers allegedly hit the woman in the parking lot, Sellers was arrested and questioned by police. When she was asked for an explanation for her actions, Sellers reportedly “shrugged her shoulders and provided no explanation.” Police said several witnesses attested to Sellers’ erratic driving in the parking lot.
Law&Crime reached out to Greenbriar Community Care Center for a statement on Sellers’ employment status with the facility but did not receive an immediate response.
Police said they did not believe Sellers intentionally hit the injured woman. However, they accused Sellers of attempting to “cover her tracks” after allegedly knowing that she hit the woman with her car and then allegedly trying to “remove evidence” from the scene.
Sellers was charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, hit and run driving causing serious bodily injury, negligent injuring, and obstruction of justice by tampering with evidence. She is currently being held at the St. Tammany Parish Jail; her bond has not been set.
