Emotional trial begins in fatal hit-and-run of 20-month-old girl

GASTONIA, N.C. — Testimony began in the trial of a woman accused of hitting a 20-month-old child and leaving her lying helplessly on the road.

Channel 9 was there when police charged Donna Hayes with felony hit-and-run in the death of Riley Bradley.

Reporter Ken Lemon was in court when some of the people who saw Riley just before and after the crash took the stand.

“I’ll never forget it,” grandfather Rick Bradley said.

Bradley talked about that morning two days before Christmas 2015.

He cried when the prosecutor showed him a picture of her. He said he bounced Riley on his knee for a while that morning.

Five minutes later, neighbors banged on the door to tell him she was struck by a car.

"I seen Riley laying there in the road like a broken little rag doll,” Bradley said.

Police said Hayes hit the girl and kept driving.

"What in the world was she doing? Why wasn't she watching the road?" Bradley said after testifying.

Police said Riley's hand prints were on the front of the car. Her head dented it.

Witnesses said the collision made a loud sound, and Hayes had to have heard it.

"I even ran through my mind that it might have been a transformer exploding or something like that,” neighbor Michael Kelly said.

Dash camera video from a parked car in the neighborhood caught Hayes' car driving away just after the incident.

Her attorney said she thought she hit a large tree limb, not a child.

"It was an accident, complete accident,” defense attorney Larry Hoyle said.

He said Hayes didn't flee like a guilty person.

She drove to her parents' home just one street away.

"You wouldn't park in plain view and go around the corner and have a cup of coffee with your parents,” Hoyle said.

The defense attorney said the family made the mistake by letting the little girl slip out of the house.

The grandfather said everyone in the house, including her mother, feels responsible for that. But they said, ultimately, Hayes should have seen the girl in the street, and should have stopped to help after the accident.

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