JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It’s been less than a week since Pamela Johnson lost her little sister, Liz Middleton, the youngest daughter of her mother, Lillie. Middleton’s family said she is the woman who died in the hit-and-run crash reported on Jacksonville’s westside last Thursday night.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said a woman was riding an electric scooter down Jammes Road, right before 9:30 PM, when a car drove from behind and hit her, speeding off without stopping to help. JSO said the woman was dead when officers got to the crash site.
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“She was my baby sister,” said Pamela Johnson, “if the person who did this tried to stay there with her, she would’ve still been living.”
Action News Jax reached out to JSO, asking if any arrests have been made or if the driver responsible for the hit-and-run has been identified. JSO told us it is still investigating the crash.
Middleton’s family said she had been battling stomach cancer since before the COVID-19 pandemic. They told us she had lived past the point where doctors thought the cancer would kill her, and believed Middleton would eventually beat the disease.
“She was a fighter. She fought through all that. She fought through the chemo, all of that. She didn’t deserve this,” Pamela Johnson said.
The city of Jacksonville said Jammes Road is a high-risk area and a priority for future safety improvement projects. The city said it’s currently doing two studies to see if new traffic lights will need to be installed on the road.
Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has reported 636 hit-and-run crashes in Duval County so far this year. Fewer crashes have been reported in other Florida counties that are around the same size, such as Orange, Palm Beach, and Pinellas counties.
Middleton’s family has already placed flowers at the site where she was hit and killed. Her mother told us the last words they said to one another were over a text message, a few hours before she died.
“The last thing she said to me, she said ‘I love you mom,’ and I said, ‘I love you too Liz’ and that’s the last thing I can remember,” said Lillie Johnson, Middleton’s mother.
Middleton’s family has planned her funeral service to be held on Saturday, February 28th, starting at 2:00 PM at Sarah L. Carter’s Funeral Home in Jacksonville. If you would like to support the family during this time, you can do so by clicking here.
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