I received a troubling Facebook message this weekend from Diane Nickerson, whose daughter Ashley, 14, was killed when struck by a drunk hit-and-run driver on Street Road in Bensalem back in 2005. Here’s what she wrote:
This is how I found my daughter’s DUI sign today. It has been up for 10 yrs and no one has ever touched a thing I’ve placed there.
A little over a week ago I recognized my daughter’s killer in a sketch of a DUI hit and run case that Brian Hickey posted on his page.
Last week I find out that my daughter’s killer is now a prime suspect in that case and this happens.
What a cowardly, punk move to destroy all daughter’s angels, flowers, and solar lights. Even pulled her picture off the sign.
The memorial is located on Street Road in Bensalem, Pa. between the Riggins Gas Station and a church near Hulmeville Road.
That’s frigging horrible. And she’s right: It is a cowardly, punk move. She suspects her daughter’s killer — who was sentenced to a meager three-year sentence after pleading guilty to the hit-and-run — is responsible for the vandalism. I know not whether that’s the case, but I DO KNOW that three years in a DUI hit-and-run is a ridiculously light sentence and emblematic of everything that’s wrong with Pennsylvania’s hit-and-run punishment structure.
