A fugitive hit-and-run suspect has been nabbed three-and-a-half years after police say he fatally mowed down a woman visiting her son for Christmas in Brooklyn.
Tyreke Hamil is accused of striking Maria Lorente, 70, as she stepped onto Flatlands Ave. near E. 78th St. in Canarsie after buying a loaf of bread on Jan. 3, 2020.
Investigators found the badly damaged car abandoned a few blocks away, determined who owned the vehicle, then used video surveillance footage to identify Hamil, 23,as a suspect, police sources said.
Members of a U.S. Marshals-NYPD fugitive task force finally caught up with Hamil in a vehicle in Hartford, Conn., about two weeks ago and on Tuesday he was extradited back to New York.
Surveillance video from a nearby grocery store captured the horrific crash, showing Lorente as she landed on the hood of the car then fell off the vehicle before being run over by a passenger-side tire.
A woman driving in the opposite direction got out of her car and tried to stop the driver but the motorist sped off, the video shows.
Lorente lived in Miramar, Fla., but she and her husband, Jose Tapanes, were staying with her son in Carnsie during the holiday season.
“She was a beautiful woman — a beautiful, hard-working woman,” Tapanes told the Daily News in 2020. “It’s unbelievable he did this.”
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