EDMONTON - Rebecca Benjamin knelt on a boulevard Sunday afternoon, tucked a braid of sweetgrass into the arms of a teddy bear, and wept for her daughter.
“It was my baby,” Benjamin said, identifying her oldest child — an 18-year-old mother named Faith Alexandra Jackson — as the victim of an early morning pedestrian hit-and-run on 82nd Street near the 141st Avenue intersection.
Jackson died early Sunday morning when a 2012 Dodge Charger hit her and then drove away. Police were called to the scene just after 3:20 a.m. Paramedics transported Jackson to hospital, where she died shortly after arrival.
Traffic investigators initially identified the fleeing vehicle as a dark-coloured domestic vehicle with front-end end damage. Later in the afternoon, they confirmed that a damaged and abandoned Charger — with dealer plates still attached — had been spotted by a passerby in a ditch north of the Alberta Hospital, near Fort Road and 174th Avenue, said Edmonton police spokeswoman Clair Seyler.
Investigators matched the vehicle with evidence found at the crash scene.
“We have a vehicle, but we don’t have a suspect at this time,” Seyler said. “The investigation will move forward and identify who was driving.”
Jackson was originally from Lac La Biche, Benjamin said, but had lived in Edmonton for years with her mother, who has three younger boys. She was a student at the Boyle Street Education Centre, had her own place, a “good man” for a boyfriend, and a one-year-old son.
Around suppertime on Saturday, Jackson told her mother she “was going out and she’d be back,” leaving with a girlfriend for a night out. It was the last time they spoke. When Benjamin was getting ready for work early Sunday morning, police came to her home, told her daughter had been hit by a car, and that she needed to come to the hospital.
“They couldn’t tell me anything, then when I got to the hospital they told me she was already dead,” Benjamin said. “My only girl.”
Jackson’s son will be cared for by her boyfriend and her mother’s family, Benjamin said.
Police said the woman was either crossing at the traffic lights at 141st Avenue or walking southbound along 82nd Street when she was struck.
On Sunday morning, southbound lanes of 82nd Street were closed as investigators combed the scene for much of the morning, photographing and spray-painting blue circles around possible evidence. Apart from a few small pieces of debris circled near the intersection, there were few obvious signs of a serious accident.
A pair of black leather boots lay crumpled about 50 metres south of the traffic lights, one on the street and the other on the boulevard. Near a bus stop close to the intersection, two bright red remnants of a scarf with what looked like pieces of jewelry lay on the ground, along with a couple of plastic pieces that looked to be from a vehicle.
Neighbours said police began canvassing area homes for possible witnesses around 4 a.m. One neighbour said he saw flashing lights around 3:30 a.m., looked out and saw paramedics place a person on a stretcher.
Police are still looking for any witnesses of the accident or anyone who saw the vehicle in the area around that time.
Jackson’s death marks the 11th pedestrian fatality and 27th traffic fatality in Edmonton in 2012.
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