Man dies in hit-run at SEPTA bus stop in Castor
It should have been an uneventful commute home for Alejo Molina just after midnight Tuesday morning: Leave the night shift at a city warehouse, catch the Route 70 bus to Bustleton Avenue, transfer to the Route 58 for a short ride, then end up at the Souder Street rowhouse he shared with his family.
It should have been an uneventful commute home for Alejo Molina just after midnight Tuesday morning: Leave the night shift at a city warehouse, catch the Route 70 bus to Bustleton Avenue, transfer to the Route 58 for a short ride, then end up at the Souder Street rowhouse he shared with his family.
But that routine, his wife said, came to a violent end when a man allegedly drove a speeding Lexus off the road and struck Molina at a bus shelter on Bustleton, killing him.
The driver was in custody Tuesday, police said, though he initially ran off and he waited seven hours to turn himself in. Police did not identify him, but Capt. John Wilczynski of the Accident Investigation Division said he likely would face charges.
On Tuesday, members of Molina's family were searching for answers, and doing their best to remember the father of two.
"I just wish he was here with me," Molina's wife, Christie Silva, 39, said outside the home in the Castor Gardens section of the city, where she and Molina lived. "Right now, I'm just missing my husband."
Philadelphia police said the incident was the 27th fatal car crash of the year - and the 10th involving a pedestrian.
The Medical Examiner's Office said 29 accidental deaths have involved motor vehicles in the city this year.
Wilczynski said Tuesday's crash happened at Cottman Avenue and Bustleton, where Molina was under the bus shelter while it was pouring rain.
The 35-year-old driver was speeding south on a portion of Bustleton that has a slight curve, Wilczynski said. The man sped through the curve and went off the road, striking Molina and tearing the shelter from the sidewalk, he said.
Wilczynski said that speed and poor weather likely played roles but that it was not immediately clear if the driver was intoxicated or distracted.
The driver, who was not the registered owner of the 2003 E-300 sedan, looked at the damage and the man's body, then ran off, leaving the vehicle behind, police said. Molina was pronounced dead at 12:46 a.m.
The driver turned himself in to police before 8 a.m. and admitted to driving the car, Wilczynski said. The man still had a head wound and blood on his shirt when he arrived at Police Headquarters, according to the captain.
Silva said that she appreciated the man's surrender but that it did not dull the pain of losing her husband.
Molina had a 20-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, she said, and had worked hard to provide for them all.
"They are going to miss their dad so much," she said. "He was always there for our family."
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Staff writer Emily Babay contributed to this article.