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Charges will be upgraded for the suspected hit-and-run driver, 72-year-old June Fenton.
SARASOTA, Fla. — A Sarasota mother whose two young kids were killed in a hit-and-run crash in February has died.
Taeler Joy Bennett, 29, had been in critical condition since the evening of Feb. 10 when she and two of her kids — 2-year-old Rio and 5-month-old Kiylan — were hit by the driver of a Lexus ES300 who left the scene.
Rio and Kiylan died while Bennett was rushed to the hospital with critical injuries.
The driver was later identified as 72-year-old June Fenton. Fenton was arrested on March 3 and charged with two counts of leaving the scene of a traffic crash resulting in a fatality and one count of leaving the scene of a traffic crash resulting in serious injury.
That last charge will be upgraded due to Bennett’s death, the state attorney’s office told 10 Tampa Bay.
Fenton has since been released on bond, prompting outrage from family and community members.
Community calls for harsher consequences
The children’s grandmother, Jessica Galliher, led a protest last month calling for harsher legal consequences for Fenton.
“They are giving this woman too much freedom. I don’t care how much money anybody has or anything,” said Galliher, who traveled from Michigan to fight for justice for her grandchildren.
Galliher had originally planned to visit her newest grandchild in Florida, but instead, she is mourning.
“It’s hard because she’s sleeping in her own bed, eating what she wants, while my grandchildren are in a casket in the ground not getting to play, not going to be with their siblings, and then hearing my granddaughter ask her daddy, ‘Why didn’t you save my brothers?'” she said tearfully.
Fenton’s defense attorney, Derek Byrd, has argued that she did not knowingly flee the scene.
“She thought she hit a dog and then she turned around. She actually did a three-point turn to come back, saw a lot of people standing there, couldn’t see what was on the ground, and thought, ‘Oh my God, it could be a dog in pain,’ and she didn’t want to see that,” Byrd said.
Byrd added that Fenton has been cooperating with investigators and has been “completely traumatized and remorseful.”
