Investigators are searching for the driver who struck and killed a widowed mother of four as she walking from a morning church service in Queens on Wednesday morning, police said.
Parishioners attending 7 a.m. Mass at St. Paul Chong HaSang Roman Catholic Church said they heard a woman screaming for help outside the church, Father Andrew Kim says.
Surveillance video from the church shows the woman being dragged by a dark car outside the church on Parsons Boulevard between 32nd and 33rd avenues, according to Kim, who said the video shows the driver then taking off.
The victim, identified by police and family members as Jum Sum Yim, was just two blocks from home when she was hit. She was pronounced dead at Flushing Hospital Medical Center around 8 a.m.
Yim had a daughter and three sons, one of whom works for the FDNY, according to her family. That son was out of the country on vacation when he learned of his mother's death; he's on his way back to the country.
"This whole situation, this act is pure evil, what happened to her and how this happened," said the victim's adult daughter, Mimi Yim.
"Turn yourself in, that's what I would tell him or her," said son Jae Yim. "I can't fathom what kind of person in the right state of mind would hit someone and leave someone to die like that."
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Police said Thursday morning they charged 58-year-old Geum Min of Queens with leaving the scene of an accident, failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care.
A neighbor said Yim's husband died about a year ago and that she was currently living with her son. She said Yim had a routine of going to the grocery store every morning.
The NYPD has been searching for surveillance video in the area as it continues its investigation.
