Family mourns, calls for justice for cousins killed in hit-and-run on Chicago's West Side
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A family shared their grief Monday night after a hit-and-run crash left two cousins dead and a third critically wounded in the East Garfield Park neighborhood.
The crash happened just after 4:30 a.m. Sunday in the 200 block of North Kedzie Avenue. Brittany Payne, 32, of Chicago, and Yolanda Payne, 47, of Bellwood, were killed, and another of their cousins remained in critical condition Monday night.
"To me she, was my baby," said Brittany's mother, Sonji Payne. "Anytime I called for her, she was there for me."
Now, Sonji Payne can never hear her daughter's voice again.
"You have torn a family apart," said Sonji Payne. "I will never see my daughter again—and that was my life."
Brittany and Yolanda Payne and their other were coming home early Sunday morning. Police said when they got near the intersection of Kedzie Avenue and Washington Boulevard, police said someone speeding in a white Dodge sport-utility vehicle ran a stop sign.
The SUV slammed right into the car with the women. Despite the serious injuries, the driver did not stick around.
"You hit them," said Brittany Payne's boyfriend, Brandon Kendrick.
Sonji Payne said if the driver has a heart, he will come forward.
"He jumped out and ran, so he had to know had to know that he hit somebody," said Sonji Payne. "I just hope and pray they get him before he hurts someone else."
The family's heart has been left broken as they gathered Monday evening outside Brittany Payne's apartment—the home to which she never made it back.
"They were on their way home," said Kendrick. "They died a couple of, two, three minutes on their way home."
Chicago Police have not released much about the person who caused the deadly hit-and-run. But Payne's family trusts police are on the case.
"Only thing, I want some justice to find out who this person is that's taken my family's life," said Sonji Payne.
But as the family waits for that to happen, they paused and reflected on the two lives gone in an instant.
The pain is harder for Brittany Payne's mother, who has been in this same situation before.
"I just dealt with this 10 years ago with another child on Lake Street. She was killed in a bad accident," said Sonji Payne. "I lost two children in the same way."
Sonji Payne is leaning on family praying the surviving cousin from the crash recovers completely at Stroger Hospital of Cook County.
Police have not said if the sport-utility vehicle involved in the deadly hit-and-run was stolen or not.