What to Know
- Police on Long Island are searching for the hit-and-run driver who killed 56-year-old Maureen Benjamin
- Benjamin had just gotten off a bus after work for the short walk home in Hempstead when she was hit
- Her daughter is pleading for the driver to go to police
A Long Island woman who'd just celebrated her 56th birthday last week was killed in a hit and run Monday, leaving behind a grieving family seeking answers.
Maureen Benjamin, a home health aide, had just gotten off a county bus in Hempstead after work Monday, and was crossing an intersection for the short walk home when she hit and killed by a driver.
"A mother is gone, a sister is gone, a wife is gone and there's no filling that void," said Sean Petit, a friend who remembered Benjamin like a second mom.
At the crash scene Monday, cars were seen going right through the stop signs designed to slow traffic there.
Her 15-year-old daughter Kayla Benjamin said she'd just spoken to her mom by phone moments before the hit-and-run.
"It's like a hole in my heart that she's gone," she said. "You don't klnow what you took from us. You have no idea what you took from us."
Local
Her message to the driver who killed her mother: "I forgive you if you are out there, but please turn yourself in."
