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Former Teacher On Trial For Hit & Run That Killed 6-Year-Old

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Testimony expected to get underway Tuesday in the trial of a former teacher accused of killing a boy last year.   The hit-and-run fatality was an unsolved mystery for days because the alleged driver---Tammy Lowe---left the scene.

As she has in the past, Tammy Lowe had nothing to say as she entered and left the court room during jury selection Monday.  She's charged with manslaughter and failure to stop and render aid in the hit-and-run death or 6-year-old John Raidy.

The first grader was struck in a Grand Prairie crosswalk as he and his mother--pushing a stroller with John's younger sister---attempted to cross the street.

For days, police showed surveillance video of the car suspected of hitting him; then suddenly Tammy Lowe turned herself in as the driver, reportedly saying she panicked when it happened and fled the scene.

At the time of her arrest, the boy's grandfather, Steven Raidy, was gratified Lowe had eventually turned herself in.

"It's going to be a healing process that's first forgiveness, but the woman did something right, even though she did something terribly wrong to our grandson," he told reporters at the time.

Police said Lowe had run a light that had been red for fourteen seconds.  Lowe had been a teacher at Adams Middle School in Grand Prairie since 1996; she resigned the same day she turned herself into police.

Her attorney, Cameron Gray, has previously said what she did could have happened to anyone, and there's more to her story than police and prosecutors claim.

"She has nothing to hide," Gray said at the time, "But, she is going to tell her side of this when she goes to trial."

She will likely get that chance this week.

(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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