Family Pleads For Hit-And-Run Driver To Come Forward 20 Years Later
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- On the anniversary of the deaths of a mother and daughter, a Brooklyn family pleaded for help in cracking the decades old hit-and-run case.
As CBS 2's Don Champion reported, the two were run down by a truck on a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn street 20 years ago. The driver still hasn't been found.
The memories from June 7, 1994 still haunt brothers Michael McLeer and Andrew Blanchard.
"It rips your heart out. You can never bring them back. It's been a long, sad time," McLeer said. "The hardest day in anybody's life. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."
It was the day their mother, Donna Blanchard, and 4-year-old sister, Michele, were killed while crossing 92nd Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway in Bay Ridge.
Blanchard's husband passed out in anguish at the scene that day, Champion reported.
Police said the driver of the white box truck that hit the pair sped away and to this day hasn't been found.
"I know the anxieties I have, you know, since this happened. I know how I can't, you know, get through a day without feeling the pain. I could imagine the kind of guilt," McLeer said.
"It's something that you live with, that we all live with every single day of our lives," Andrew Blanchard said.
Through the years candles and flowers have gone up at the intersection where the accident happened. The crossroad has even been renamed in memory of the two.
Now, just more than 20 years after the accident that claimed their lives, their faces have been included in a mural painted on the side of the very store the pair had just left moments before they were killed.
"It's about maybe other people will learn from what happened here and take the time out to slow down. What are you in a rush for, you know? It could be your sister, your mother," McLeer said.
Still, the family wants justice for their loved ones. They're still hopeful the person who has been driving around with guilt will come forward.
"You got to be heartless. You know, it's got to be on their mind everyday," said Andrew Blanchard.
"Time doesn't heal the pain, you just become really good at hiding it," McLeer added.
The family said there have been leads in year's past, but nothing recently.
The NYPD told CBS 2 it considers the case an active investigation still 20 years later.
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