Killer-tracking mom sees efforts pay off

GRIEF NEVER released its grip on Betty Davis' heart after her son was killed by a hit-and-run driver, so she carried it with her to the South Jersey bars, parking lots and ice-covered roads she scoured in her quest for answers.

Grief drove Davis to a Gloucester County Acme one night, where she pretended to shop but was really looking deep into the faces of every young man she saw there.

"I looked at them and wondered 'Did you kill my son?' " said Davis, whose son, Brian Lilley, was killed during a hit-and-run in Monroe Township on Oct. 12, 2006.

A psychic had given Davis cryptic information about the accident: an Acme, a 19-year-old man and the initial "J." Like all the other leads she had developed and investigated on her own, she pounced on it, driving back to South Jersey from her home in Delaware for the umpteenth time.

The psychic's tips never panned out. But Davis' determination to find her son's killer - the late-night calls to police, the money she spent on fliers and a billboard, and the hundreds of hours she spent searching for dented cars and copying license plates - paid off when a tipster spotted the billboard and called police, claiming she knew the suspect's girlfriend.

"People used to say to me, 'Why don't you stop all this; it's never going to bring him back,' but I could never give up and let the grief take over," said the former Verizon employee. "I knew he was out there somewhere."

"Somewhere" turned out to be Franklin Township, Gloucester County, where authorities say 22-year-old Joseph Bozzelli had been living with his guilt for two years - and possibly destroying the evidence - before his girlfriend gave a statement that tied him to the accident.

Police arrested Bozzelli last Nov. 6, and he was convicted in a plea agreement earlier this year.

Lilley, 30, a carpet installer who had a knack for catching largemouth bass, was walking home from a friend's house when Bozzelli struck him on Sicklerville Road sometime before 2 a.m. and fled, authorities said. Lilley's brain stem was severed, his mother said. His body was found on the side of the road by a motorist.

"They said he died instantly, but Joseph Bozzelli never stuck around to find out," she said.

Bozzelli kept his jaw clenched and eyes down as Davis gave a tearful and sobbing statement to Gloucester County Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. yesterday morning during his sentencing hearing in Woodbury.

"How did you sleep at night?" she asked Bozzelli as dozens of family members wept in the courtroom.

Marshall sentenced Bozzelli to three years in New Jersey State Prison for leaving the scene of a fatal accident and causing a death while driving without a license, a term that Davis said she begrudgingly accepted after a plea agreement last month.

Bozzelli, when asked if he had anything to say yesterday, simply said 'No.'

While Bozzelli's silence stung Davis' family after the hearing, his former girlfriend, the woman who admits to leading him to authorities, said there's a good reason why he didn't speak up.

"He's a good guy and he didn't do this. He knows that," said Christine Lynch, a Franklin Township woman currently in the Gloucester County Women's Prison on drug charges

Lynch, 21, said she was set up by the woman who noticed the billboard and was high on prescription painkillers when she gave her statement to police.

"I've got no shame in my game. I'm a drug addict," Lynch said from the jail. "They said if I didn't tell them what I knew or what they wanted to hear, they were gonna make sure I was in jail. This whole time, I can't even think straight cause I'm on like 20 to 25 Xanies [Xanax]. I don't even remember what I said."

The Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office said Lynch, in her statement, said that her former boyfriend has admitted hitting someone. Lynch also told investigators she saw blood on Bozzelli's car, which was never found.

Lynch's sister, Jennifer Derevlany, said she advised Bozzelli not to take a plea agreement because there was almost no physical evidence.

"I guess I can't blame him," said Derevlany, a lifelong friend of Bozzelli's. "He just wanted to get out of jail someday."

Bozzelli's attorney did not return a phone call for comment yesterday.

Gloucester County Assistant Prosecutor Laurie Cimino acknowledged that there was no way to tell if Bozzelli was intoxicated or speeding and little or no evidence collected after the accident. She said investigators believe Bozzelli junked the car involved in the accident.

Cimino said she was not aware that Lynch was now recanting her statement and reiterated that Bozzelli admitted his role in Lilley's death in court.

Detective Lt. Joseph Smart, of the Monroe Township Police Department, said the lack of evidence never stopped the investigation and seemed to propel Davis even harder as months passed with no answers.

"She was absolutely driving us nuts in the beginning, but that's what a parent's supposed to do," Smart said. "Neither she or the department ever gave up."

During the months she spent investigating the case, Davis was also in the process of adopting a young boy named Tommy, who embraced her in court yesterday while she waited to speak.

"He was another reason for me to get up and get out of bed. Brian never got a chance to meet him," she said.

Now that the case is over, Davis said she still has one more loose end to tie up. She plans to erect another billboard, in place of the one that helped break the case: a large, public "Thank You" to the investigators and police department who never gave up on the case, or her.

"I don't think they ever got sick of me," she said. "They told me I'd done more to help in a case than anyone they'd ever come across. I love them."