Hit-Run Driver Kills 2 Elderly Women

A hit-and-run driver struck and killed two elderly women within yards of their homes Wednesday night on a Hollywood street that some neighborhood residents call a peril for pedestrians. One victim’s son was among the first to happen by and see his mother, 77-year-old Hildegarde Haskell, lying in the road.

Police booked Beatrice Buocz of Hollywood on suspicion of hit-and-run felony manslaughter shortly after she turned herself in Thursday. She was being held at the Van Nuys jail in lieu of $85,000 bail.

Buocz’s boyfriend, Steve Michael Visotsky, 45, was arrested for allegedly aiding and abetting her in evading arrest, police said. His bail was set at $5,000.

Looking for Second Driver

After Buocz allegedly fled the scene, leaving the women in the road, another vehicle struck Haskell again, dragging her 20 feet along Beachwood Drive. Police are still trying to identify the second driver, who witnesses said drove a blue short bed pickup truck.

Haskell and her friend, Hazel Selden, 80, had left Haskell’s Beachwood Drive apartment at about 8 p.m. and were crossing at the corner of Scenic Avenue when Buocz’s gray Buick reportedly struck them, witnesses told investigators. Police would not say how fast the car was traveling.

The impact tossed Selden--or the car carried her--100 feet. She died almost immediately.

Carl Haskell-Hanson, 40, out for a stroll, walked up just as paramedics were putting down the first flares.

“You don’t normally assume it’s your mother that’s been killed,” Hanson said. “I’m about halfway down the block when I see the silver walker in the middle of the street.”

He had to watch as paramedics loaded his mother into an ambulance.

“She was conscious. She knew who I was,” said Hanson, a broadcast engineer. “I held her hand for 10 minutes and talked to her while they were strapping her up.”

Haskell, the daughter of the late artist Ernest Haskell, died about two hours later at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center as surgeons prepared to operate on a skull fracture.

After the accident, Buocz, whom area residents described as a friendly English teacher, allegedly drove to her father’s house around the corner. Police said a motorcyclist followed her and confronted her about going to the police.

No Previous Arrest Record

The 42-year-old woman surrendered to police Thursday morning. Police said she has no previous arrest record.

Before her death, Haskell, a widow, was recovering from a fractured knee. She was preparing for a return to her apartment after convalescent stays at a hospital and with friends.

“We had got her apartment all set up for her to come back,” Hanson said.

Wednesday afternoon, Beachwood Market delivery boy Jesus Cruz, brought over her first grocery order in months.

“She was a nice, old lady,” he said of the widowed housewife. “Always concerned about other people. She always asked how my grandmother was doing.

“She said she was lucky she was able to walk again,” he said. “She was doing better with her walker than I do with mine,” said Manford Kirby, 75, her next door neighbor and friend. “She was as smart as a whip.”

Kirby said Selden, who lived with and did household chores for a woman across the street, had also been kind to him. Her landlord called Selden “very honest, a good companion and a good friend.”

Kirby’s balcony overlooks the intersection of Scenic and Beachwood.

“I wouldn’t attempt to cross that street,” he said. “They don’t stop. They don’t even slow down.”

Hanson said there should be crosswalks and traffic lights or stop signs to slow down the traffic moving on Beachwood between the Hollywood Hills and Franklin Avenue.

“Even crossing in the daylight is difficult,” Hanson said, a statement echoed by people up and down the street.

But Sgt. Tony Morgan, a Los Angeles Police Department traffic officer, said it was more a case of two people being in the wrong place at a bad time. Robert Takasaki, a city transportation engineer, said a study concluded as recently as September showed there was not enough traffic to justify putting a stop sign or traffic signal on Beachwood. Takasaki said that speed limit enforcement was more a concern for the police.