Woman Sentenced to 2 Years in Hit-and-Run That Killed Teen
A Los Angeles woman convicted of the hit-and-run killing of a Taft High School student was sentenced Tuesday to two years in state prison.
Before the start of her trial in May, Maria Socorro Benitez pleaded no contest to charges of vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.
Six months ago, Benitez drove her 1987 Plymouth Voyager minivan into Bobby Hodby, 16, as he was crossing the street to catch a bus to school. The ninth-grader’s father had just dropped him off at the intersection, and officials said Hodby was crossing in a marked crosswalk.
Benitez drove on after striking the boy.
The time and location of the accident led Los Angeles police detectives to suspect that the minivan driver lived in the area.
“It happened in the morning and they figured people were going to work,” Gibbons said. “So there was the possibility that whoever hit the victim lived nearby.”
Police did a computer check on 1987 Voyagers that had been ticketed in Los Angeles in the past 10 years and came up with 100 such vehicles. Investigators then checked each one, starting with Plymouth Voyagers registered within a five-mile radius of the crime scene, Gibbons said.
Benitez was arrested Dec. 27 after police saw her van parked behind her residence.
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