Meet Jerome Brooks of Elmira, NY. He’s the guy suspected of killing a 52-year-old woman in a hit-and-run at 48th and Chester on Monday night.
Here’s what the police department said Thursday about his arrest:
There has been a Arrest in a Fatal Hit and Run which occurred at 49th & Chester Ave on 12-03-12 at 10:22PM. On above date and time there was a fatal auto-ped Hit and Run. In this crash, the victim, Deanna Teal, B/F, 52 years old from the 4900 Block of Baltimore Ave, was crossing the intersection S/B on 49th St., when she was struck by an SUV traveling at a high rate of speed E/B on Chester Ave. The vehicle did not slow down or stop after the crash. Teal was pronounced dead at the scene.The striking vehicle was located abandoned, with heavy front end damage, in the rear of the 4700 Block. of Larchwood St. After an investigation by The Accident Investigation District Jerome Brooks, B/M, 45 years old, from the 800 Block of Lincoln St, Elmira N.Y. is charged with Murder, Homicide by vehicle, Aggravated Assault and related offenses.
Here’s what the police department left out of the arrest announcement (all quotes courtesy of the police report):
– The SUV became “airborne momentarily” as it sped through the intersection, which was when someone noticed “something hanging off” the rear of the car.
– One witness told police she thought the car was going about 120mph (it wasn’t, but 80 is a safer estimate).
– Another witness told police that she saw “what appeared to be [the victim’s] heart, laying detached from her body, and still pumping” in the street. Also, the victim’s “upper and lower torso was severed.”
– Police tracked down the car owner’s identity quickly, and soon determined who was allegedly driving it. At the VA Hospital, they set out to interview “the only, and prime, suspect” in the case.
– Brooks said “that on the day of the crash he had stopped at a bar and drank cognac (a double or triple shot). He left the bar and was driving at [estimated] 90 mph. The street lights were passing him very fast. He remembered sliding on some tracks then stopping for a second then pulling off again.”
– He admitted to “using cocaine starting around 9 p.m. and that he had been on using cocaine for two days off and on. … He told the officer that he had been on a drug and alcohol binge.”
– The victim’s body was found 200 feet away from the point of impact. She leaves behind a fiance and four children.
Brooks should, and will likely never, see the light of freedom again. However, I do give him a modicum of credit for apparently already accepting responsibility for what the investigative report has him saying he’s done.