Hit-run victim's mom: 'Who gives you right to take my daughter?'

ANNA POZZI wants to know what the person who killed her daughter two days before Christmas, plowing her down with a truck, did after leaving her to die.

"What do you do after you kill somebody? Do you go have lunch? Go have a drink at the bar?" Pozzi, 62, asked through tears yesterday during a candlelight vigil in her daughter's memory after a noon mass at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Bella Vista. "Do you go home and enjoy your family for the rest of your life, like you took away from us?"

Pozzi's daughter Theresa Pozzi, 33, the second-youngest of four children, was crossing State Road in Holmesburg near Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility about 5:20 p.m. Dec. 23 when a dark, older-model pickup or tow truck speeding up the road hit her, police have said.

The driver continued north on State Road without slowing down, and Theresa Pozzi, who worked as a cashier and had been halfway across the street on her way to the bus stop after visiting her boyfriend, was pronounced dead less than an hour and a half later.

Yesterday, more than a month since the woman's tragic death, her mother and other relatives pleaded for the driver who killed her - or anyone with information - to come forward. The only clues, police and relatives have said, are a few witness descriptions of the truck and grainy surveillance footage of the truck.

"He didn't have the heart to stop. He's a coward," said Theresa's brother-in-law, Victor Rescigno, outside St. Paul's at 10th and Christian streets. "Like the pastor says: How can he sleep? It killed a whole family. They are lost."

Anna Pozzi sobbed as about two dozen relatives and friends - including some of her daughter's young nieces and nephews - gathered outside the church and lit candles before the Rev. John Large led them in a short prayer yesterday afternoon.

"Who gives you the right to take my daughter from me?" the devastated mother gasped. "Who gives you that right?"

She recalled her daughter as a warm, entertaining young woman. "My drama queen," she called her, saying that she and her other adult children would often tease Theresa for her preference of designer clothing over cheaper brands, which she would say made her itch.

"If she was your friend, she was your friend for life," Anna Pozzi said. "She was very loving, a lot of fun to be around."

A $4,500 reward has been posted for information leading to the driver responsible for Theresa Pozzi's death. Her family has set up a fund at GoFundMe.com/JusticeForTheresa for donations to add to the reward.

"If anybody knows anything, call the police. . . . Get a heart," Rescigno, 53, said before the prayer that the person responsible would be revealed.

"God have mercy on him," Anna Pozzi said.

"Because I don't."