Parents Of Young Hit & Run Victim Beg Driver To Come Forward
MIAMI (CBS4) - Monique Batchelor sits in her son's room, on his bed, surrounded by all of his belongings.
"His book bag he carried to school every day, his favorite blanket, his Spiderman blanket he loved this," said Batchelor.
She tried to clear out his bedroom. He is 6 year old son Deandre Binns. The boy with the contagious smile was killed by a hit and run driver. She started to take down his artwork, she closed his bedroom door, but she just couldn't do it anymore. While it's painful, all of these things make her smile.
"We can't just take it away and erase him like that," said Batchelor. "We're not ready for that yet. We feel like we need to hold on to this. It helps us."
Deandre was killed when a hit and run driver struck him on the 6200 block of Miramar Parkway on January 9th. The horrific accident happened in front of the whole family. Fuzzy surveillance video captured what could be the car that hit him, possibly a white, early 90's Honda Accord. The driver has not been found.
It's a moment that haunts his stepfather.
"I looked up and saw a car coming like doing about 65 miles per hour," said Patrick Heslop. "I throw my hands in the air and curse and say, 'my child is dead!' The whole time I was saying, 'please, let him be crippled, I will clean him for the rest of my life, just let him be cripple'."
He didn't make it, and the driver who hit him never stopped, just kept going. He left the family in pain and with a lot of questions.
"Why didn't you stop?" asked Batchelor. "We want to know why you didn't stop, why you kept moving. Did you think it was an animal? Or did you see?"
Deadre's little sister Jada asks about him every day. She was there when he was killed. Now the family remembers him through his drawings and school work.
"I prize these little things," said Batchelor, clutching a picture of him that sits in the middle of a Christmas ornament. "At the moment I was probably talking and I was not paying much attention and saying 'ya it's beautiful, I love it'. But now I really see the true meaning."
If you have any information that can help investigators call Broward Crime Stoppers at (954) 493-TIPS.
