Philadelphia Police vowed to find the driver in a hit-and-run that killed a young girl in the city's Overbrook neighborhood earlier this month while the girl's mother begged the driver to surrender.
The wreck at 63rd Street and Lansdowne Avenue left Jayanna Powell, 8, dead. Her family and friends laid her to rest Monday. On Tuesday, accident investigators updated their investigation while the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police announced a $15,000 reward -- mostly from private donors -- for information leading to an arrest of the driver. Mayor Jim Kenney's office also put up $10,000. [[403455146, C]]
"I just want to talk to the person who hit my daughter," said Jayanna's mother, Ayesha Poole. "It may have been an accident, I don't know, I just ask you to turn yourself in.
"I had to lay my baby to rest yesterday -- the hardest day in my life," Poole said. "I don't get a prom, I don't get a graduation, no marriage, no grandkids, no nothing, so, just turn yourself in. Make it better on everybody -- please turn yourself in."
Jayanna and her siblings were walking home from school around 3:15 p.m. when a car slammed into the 8-year-old.
"We was just crossing the street just to get the bus," Jayanna's 12-year-old brother Hassan Cox said. [[401993186, C]]
Cox said he was holding his sister's hand as they crossed 63rd Street when they were struck by a driver speeding through the intersection trying to catch a yellow light. The force of the impact was so strong that the girl was thrown 20 feet, her family said. A witness said the girl's backpack also tore open, splaying paper and books all over the street.
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Cox was knocked into a nearby car, the family said. Jayanna was rushed to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with serious injuries. She died a short time later, police said.
Police have been searching for a gray or silver 2009 to 2016 Nissan Altima or Maxima with damage to the headlights and grill. The car was last seen heading southbound on 63rd Street. Cox described what the driver looked like. [[402770276, C]]
"He was bald. He had a half-beard at his chin," Cox said. "He had white glasses on."
"We need the public's assistance in finding the person responsible," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.
Anyone with information about the driver or whereabouts of the car is asked to call accident investigators at 215-685-3180 or 3181.
