Victim’s mother weeps as hit-run driver gets 3 years

A Franklinville man who drove off after hitting and fatally injuring a pedestrian was sentenced to three years in prison this morning after the victim's mother wept and asked how he could have left her son to die like that.

Betty Davis had waged a two year campaign to find whoever had killed her son Brian Lilley in October 2006 in Monroe Township.

This morning, surrounded by more than a dozen relatives and friends wearing photos of her son around their necks, Lilley watched as Joseph Bozzelli, 22, appeared in Superior Court in Woodbury before Judge Walter L. Marshall to hear his sentence.

Showing no emotion, Bozzelli declined to make a statement when asked by the judge.

Bozzelli, under a plea agreement with prosecutors, was convicted of causing the death of Lilley, 30, a carpet installer who was on his way home from a friend's house when he was struck in Monroe Township in October 2006.

Bozzelli was indicted in January after Davis launched her own investigation to find out who killed her son, passing out fliers at bars and businesses near the crime scene and posting a billboard.

Police subsequently followed a tip that led to Bozzelli's arrest a year ago.