Hit-and-run driver kills woman in Fort Lauderdale, police say

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Detectives are searching for the driver who struck and killed a 74-year-old woman on July 22 in Fort Lauderdale.

The driver struck Willie Mae Gipson shortly before midnight near the intersection of Northwest 10th Terrace and Sixth Street, according to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department.

Gipson’s son Ronnie Gipson said their family was devastated. He said it was shocking to learn that a driver just decided his mother’s life didn’t matter.

“I was angry that someone would just hit such a wonderful woman and just leave here there to die without trying to get her any care,” the grieving son said.”My son misses his grandmother.”

Surveillance video shows Gipson fell down just before the driver going eastbound struck her on the eastbound lanes of Northwest Sixth Street, police said. Fire Rescue personnel took Gipson to Broward Health Medical Center where a doctor pronounced her dead.

“We just buried her this Saturday, and just to see all the people who came there that we had no idea that she knew that said she touched their lives and how much she meant to them show you how good of heart she had,” Ronnie Gipson said. “For the person who did it, if you have any decency in your heart, we ask that you turn yourself in because eventually you will be caught.”

Detective Andrea Johnson was asking anyone with information about the fatal hit-and-run crash to call her at 954-828-5825 or Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.

Warning: Graphic content

Video shows fatal hit-and-run crash, police say

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Christina returned to Local 10 in 2019 as a reporter after covering Hurricane Dorian for the station. She is an Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist and previously earned an Emmy Award while at WPLG for her investigative consumer protection segment "Call Christina."

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The Emmy Award-winning journalist joined the Local 10 News team in 2013. She wrote for the Miami Herald for more than 9 years and won a Green Eyeshade Award.

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