Boy Killed in Hit-Run; Driver Held

A woman who witnessed a hit-and-run that killed a young boy in a crosswalk chased a driver for more than a mile and persuaded him to return to the scene, where police arrested him.

Kerwin Santos, 11, of North Hollywood, was crossing the intersection of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Archwood Street about 7:50 p.m. Friday when he was struck by a pickup truck and thrown 50 feet.

He suffered massive head injuries and died at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles about six hours later, officials said.

On Saturday, Kerwin’s mother, Teodora, was almost wordless with grief.

She was with Kerwin when he died at 2:30 a.m. and was busy Saturday making funeral preparations.

She said Kerwin left the house Friday night to get some sandwiches at a local fast-food restaurant.

“He was a very good boy,” Teodora Santos said haltingly on the phone, as relatives cried in the background. “He wanted to be a pilot. He was a very sweet, loving boy.”

Police said Kerwin was struck by a 1998 Ford pickup truck driving south on Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

The driver sped away, but a witness, whom police declined to identify, followed him in her car.

The woman called police on her cell phone, and when the driver stopped a mile and a half later to inspect the damage to the front of his pickup, she told him she had his license plate number and would give it to police if he did not return to the scene of the accident.

The driver returned with the woman following him.

John D. Benson, 43, of North Hollywood was arrested on suspicion of felony hit-and-run by Officer Frank Bancalari of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division.

A police source said the woman’s identity is being protected because Benson is a possible suspect in a fatal hit-and-run that occurred just a few miles away at 2:10 a.m. on April 14.

In that incident, Trent Michael Illig, a 24-year-old North Hollywood man, was about to get into his car, which was parked on the south curve of Ventura Boulevard west of Blue Canyon Drive, when he was hit by what police think was a 1997 Ford F-150 pickup truck.

The impact threw Illig into the open front seat of a convertible parked in front of his car, police said. Illig died almost immediately from massive injuries.

The police source said they are looking at whether Benson was involved because of the proximity to Friday’s hit-and-run and the descriptions of the pickup trucks are so similar.

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Staff writer Scott Glover contributed to this report.