Police: Driver in deadly Stamford hit-and-run removed license plates, abandoned vehicle
STAMFORD, Conn. -- Stamford Police say the driver in a deadly hit-and-run took steps to hide what happened.
CBS2's Tony Aiello spoke with the heartbroken family of the man who was struck and killed.
"He had a big heart. He loved people, he loved interacting with people, and people loved him," Yale graduate student Alex Molina said.
Molina is mourning the loss of his father, 52-year-old Ronald Molina, an immigrant from Guatemala who built a successful landscaping business while helping to raise two sons and a stepdaughter.
"It's been really hard, and we're kind of all as a family trying to process this slowly," Alex Molina said.
Last week, Ronald Molina was walking across busy Tresser Boulevard in Downtown Stamford when he was struck by a driver who fled the scene. Stamford Police say the car was unregistered and uninsured, and the driver removed the license plates before ditching the car near the scene.
"This person kind of wanted to hide as soon as they could," Alex Molina said. "It was essentially a ghost vehicle, so I don't know what this person was involved in, but from my assumptions, probably not many good things."
"Could be the person was scared, didn't know what to do, got confused, or it tells me that they just didn't care that they hit somebody that hard and wanted to try to get away with it," Stamford Police Sgt. Jeff Booth said.
Booth says police have used surveillance video and other tools to identify the driver and anticipate an arrest before long.
"I would just tell them to turn themselves in. I think you need to kind of find it within yourself to go ahead and do that, and it might be hard, because I'm assuming they're in shock, but also we were in shock as well," Alex Molina said.
Ronald Molina died Monday after several days in the hospital. His heart was transplanted into a man in his 30s. The Molina family is pleased a part of him lives on.