FREDERIKSTED — A St. Croix driver was charged with manslaughter and related charges after police said he struck and killed a pedestrian last month — and then drove away from the fatal accident scene..
Cedric Richardson, 64, was arrested and charged with Involuntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident, the Virgin Islands Police Department said today.
The charges stem from an April 19 incident in which 54-year-old Christina Finney was struck and killed just before 7:17 p.m. near The Market STX supermarket in Estate Plessen, according to the VIPD.
VIPD mug shot of Cedric Richardson, 64, of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Bail for Richardson was set at $50,000.00.
Traffic Investigation Bureau officers were dispatched by the 911 Emergency Call Center to investigate a collision involving Finney on the Queen Mary Highway (Route 70) in the vicinity of the supermarket, police said.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the pedestrian was walking east in the eastbound lane when she was struck from behind by an unidentified motorist, according to police.
“The driver left the scene of the collision, and no one reported being involved in a collision with a pedestrian via 911 or any police station in the St. Croix district that evening,” VIPD spokeswoman Kishma Chichester said. “The pedestrian was identified at the scene by her next of kin.”
The Emergency Room Physician at the Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital stated that Ms. Finney
sustained multiple blunt force trauma to the body and experienced respiratory and cardiac
arrest, according to Chichester.
Richardson was scheduled to appear in an advice-of-rights hearing in Superior Court at Kingshill on Thursday morning May 1.
