Nurse confesses to Nicetown hit-and-run

A registered nurse has confessed that she was driving the vehicle involved with Friday night's hit-and-run fatality of a 15-year-old from Nicetown, police said yesterday.

Michelle Johnson, 40, of the 5900 block of North Lawrence Street, said she was on her way to work at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and knew she struck the teen, but did not stop because she panicked, according to police.

Instead, she went to work and parked her damaged vehicle in the prison parking lot, where investigators found it Sunday, police said.

Johnson was charged Tuesday night with numerous offenses, including vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and driving with a suspended license. It was not immediately clear why Johnson's driver's license had been suspended.

The teen, Mary Lee Otto of the 1900 block of Kennedy Street, was walking east in the center median trying to cross Rhawn Street, near Lexington Avenue, with several friends shortly after 11 p.m., police said.

The vehicle that struck her was also traveling east on Rhawn. The teen was taken to Frankford Hospital Torresdale Campus, where she was pronounced dead four hours after the accident.

Terry Plunkett said he stopped with his wife and 16-year-old daughter while going home and saw the distraught teenagers desperately calling for help.

"She was lying there in a cold, dark street . . . the person that hit her just left essentially no one but her friends to tend to her," Plunkett said.

"I frankly don't care what her excuses are about leaving the scene. She caused the tragedy and then left a child to die in the street without someone there to help."

Plunkett said he felt even more outrage yesterday after learning that the accused driver was a nurse.

Police were looking for a Toyota Sequoia with front-end damage and were sent to look at one parked at the prison on State Road.

The SUV, which had front-end damage and a cracked windshield, was impounded, and investigators confirmed it was the vehicle involved in the accident, police said. Investigators said the vehicle was leased by Johnson.

Johnson works for Prison Health Services Inc., a private company based in Tennessee and contracted to provide medical services for the prison, said prison spokesman Robert Eskind.

Eskind said Johnson has been employed there since July 2006, but her privileges were suspended pending the criminal investigation.