By Haitian Times
A twelve-year-old Haitian-American Brooklyn girl is dead after she was rundown by a hit-and-run driver. Joie Sellers was standing at a bus stop on Flatlands Avenue with her mother Marcia Landais and sister Charli, when they were struck by Robert DeCarlo on July 2.
Robert DeCarlo Credit: NYPD
Sellers and her mother were walking to the bus stop to pick up Charli, who was on her way home from summer camp on Long Island, Ronald Pierre, Landais’ cousin said. DeCarlo, 26, was behind the wheels of a stolen 2005 Dodge Caravan when the vehicle jumped the sidewalk hitting Sellers, her mother, 38, and sister Charlie, 9, shortly before 5 p.m. last Wednesday. The incident took place on Flatlands Avenue near East 46th Street. After the crash, DeCarlo fled on foot while onlookers followed questioning him.
Credit: Joie Sellers performs in The Nutcracker 2013 Frederick Piccarello
All three were rushed to Kings County Hospital where Sellers was pronounced dead. Charli and Landais are in critical, but stable condition, according to hospital officials. Charli, who’s been transferred to New York-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital in Manhattan, is unaware that her sister is dead, Pierre said.
DeCarlo was apprehended the following day, July 3, on Kings Highway, according to the NYPD. He is charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and in injury, grand larceny, reckless endangerment and unauthorized use of a vehicle. He also received citations for speeding and running a red light.
He expressed remorse for the fatal hit-and-run.
“As a man, as a human being, I’d like to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” DeCarlo said to the Daily News. “I took a life. I have to pay for that. I have to pay for a life.”
DeCarlo made an initial court appearance on Thursday night and is being held without bail.
