Hit-Run Incident Claims a ‘Mom’ to Abandoned

A 56-year-old Huntington Beach woman who worked as a volunteer companion for AIDS patients was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver near her home Monday morning, and a suspect who lives just a few blocks away was arrested, authorities said.

Velma McClure was walking her dog along Ashland Drive shortly after 7 a.m. when she was hit and dragged more than 100 feet, according to Huntington Beach Police Lt. Bill Mamelli. There apparently were no witnesses to the accident, but neighbors heard the crash and ran to McClure’s aid.

The suspect, Paige Distefano, 43, of Huntington Beach, was arrested at 3:30 p.m. as she drove her damaged 1977 white Lincoln Continental along Main Street near Golden West Street in Westminster. Information developed by investigators led to Distefano, said Mamelli, who refused to elaborate.

There was no indication that Distefano, who was held on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run, knew McClure, police said.

No further information was available on Distefano, and a man who answered the telephone at her home refused to comment. Distefano remained in the Huntington Beach jail Monday night.

McClure was described Monday by her children, friends and employer as a loving, spiritual person. She got an insurance license and returned to work after she was divorced about 4 years ago and was studying to be a practitioner in her church. She spent much of her free time as a volunteer companion for the AIDS Service Foundation in Costa Mesa.

McClure’s son, Tom, said she began working with patients suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome “after she lost a couple of friends to the disease.” In addition to Tom, 38, McClure was the mother of two other children, David, 31, and Mary Ann, 25.

“She was a companion to people whose families had abandoned them,” Tom McClure said. “She was a Mom to them.”

Tom McClure, who learned of his mother’s death when a neighbor called him Monday morning, said she had doted on her pets, Me Too, a Lhasa apso, and a second dog that she reluctantly had put to sleep a few months ago. Me Too returned home unharmed after McClure was hit, her son said.

“Every morning and every night she took the dogs out,” Tom McClure said. “They were surrogate children, I think. The dog is home and underfoot again.”

Lester Turner, who met McClure about 2 years ago when they both were studying to be practitioners at the Church of Religious Science of Laguna Beach, described her as “a friendly, loving person.”

She had worked in the insurance field many years ago, and went to work for Turner in his Newport Beach insurance office so that she could regain her license, he said.

She left his firm in October because she wanted to work with elderly clients, and Trenary Insurance Services in Laguna Hills offered a position that would allow her to do that, Turner said.

“She got traded to a better league,” he said. “She accomplished what she set out to do here: get her insurance license. She enjoyed talking and working with elderly people, so when the job with Trenary came up, it was a perfect marriage.”