Hit-Run Driver Kills 2 Leaving Church Services

A hit-and-run driver in a pickup truck killed a Van Nuys woman and her sister-in-law, a visitor from China, as they returned home from church, the Los Angeles Police Department reported.

Yoo Won Jo, 63, and her sister-in-law, Yoo Oak Soon, 65, were crossing Sherman Way east of Kester Avenue at about 11:15 p.m. Thursday when they were hit, Officer Mike Ewing said. They were not in a crosswalk, he said.

The women had attended a conference and evening services at the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys and were returning to Yoo Won Jo’s apartment in a retirement home across the street, Ewing said.

Church officials said Yoo had lived across the street with her husband, Jong, 67, for two years.

“Several congregation members were talking in front of the church when we heard a loud crash,” the Rev. Yoon Chong Dae, pastor of the church’s Korean mission, said through an interpreter. “At first we thought it was a two-car collision. Suddenly, a light-colored pickup truck sped away and we realized that two of our church members had been hit.”

Both women were pronounced dead at the scene, Ewing said.

The associate pastor of the church, Jim Rives, urged the driver, “who is probably feeling very lonely, guilty and afraid,” to return to the church. “Our doors are open, if it’s just to talk or to accompany the person to the police station,” he said.

Police endorsed the church’s offer. “Any help that we can get in finding who this individual was would benefit all the people involved,” Valley Traffic Officer Bill Wilkins said.