Philadelphia Police charged a 24-year-old man in a hit-and-run that killed a young girl in the city's Overbrook neighborhood earlier this month after a suspicious suburban auto body shop owner contacted them.
"The individual that runs the body shop saw (news coverage), got suspicious and called us up," said Police Commissioner Richard Ross.
Police told NBC10 they charged Paul Woodlyn in the hit-and-run death of 8-year-old Jayanna Powell Thursday. The 24-year-old from Marlyn Street in Overboork faces homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter and related charges.
Powell was walking home from school with her siblings on 63rd Street and Lansdowne Avenue around 3:15 p.m. back on Nov. 18.
"We was just crossing the street just to get the bus," Jayanna's 12-year-old brother Hassan Cox said.
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.
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 the hit-and-run vehicle was 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.
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.
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"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."
On Wednesday, police checked a car that was taken to an auto body shop in Frazer, Pennsylvania. The owner told NBC10 a woman had taken the damaged car, an Altima with a busted front end, to his shop on Nov. 19, one day after the deadly hit-and-run.
After police towed the vehicle back to Philadelphia they determined it was the same vehicle that struck Powell.
"We were able to match up some of the auto parts to that particular car, it's absolutely the car," said Ross.
Police executed search warrants on the vehicle as well as a Philadelphia home and also questioned several people before arresting Woodlyn, who doesn't own the car, said Ross.
A judge arraigned Woodlyn Thursday morning and set bail at $500,000, said court records.
