78-year-old woman killed by driver of stolen vehicle in Mantua hit-and-run

A 78-year-old woman was killed Wednesday afternoon by the driver of a stolen vehicle who then ran from the scene in the city’s Mantua section, police said.

Around 12:30 p.m., the woman was sitting in her silver Mercury Mariner on the 3700 block of Fairmount Avenue when someone driving a stolen white Jeep Grand Cherokee struck her vehicle on the driver’s side, police said.

The Jeep also hit five other parked vehicles before its occupants ran away, police said. The Jeep was recovered as evidence.

Medics transported the woman, who was not identified, to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 1:46 p.m.

This year, there have been a record number of deadly hit-and-runs in Philadelphia, an Inquirer report found earlier this month.

Hit-and-runs have killed more than 30 people in the city in 2022, a figure that’s tripled when compared to statistics from 2019.

The report also found that drivers involved in fatal car accidents this year fled the scene in one out of every four incidents, and that police made arrests in less than half of fatal hit-and-runs during the pandemic period.

On Monday night, a woman killed a 22-year-old man and injured three other people during a hit-and-run spree in North Philadelphia.

Police identified the deceased man as Roland Darrel White of East Germantown.

The suspect struck White shortly before 8:30 p.m. Monday while White was standing at the corner of Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue, police said. White was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after.

The suspect, who remains at large, abandoned her silver and blue 2005 Ford Mustang on Broad Street and Indiana Avenue.