It was two months ago tonight that Faith Sinclair was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver as she tried to cross Chester Pike in Sharon Hill.
Her family still waits for the answer to the question that has haunted them ever since. How could someone do such a thing?
We wonder the same thing.
This week we learned the county Investigative Grand Jury was looking at the case. It’s a key tool that is often used when investigators are having trouble getting people to come forward to talk about what they may know about the case.
Here is the editorial that appears in today’s print edition on the mystery involving Faith Sinclair:
We have not forgotten
Neither have Sharon Hill Police.
Nor the Delaware County District Attorney’s office.
It was exactly two months ago, on a summer Sunday night, when Faith Sinclair tried to cross Chester Pike in Sharon Hill.
It’s a bad intersection, where the busy thoroughfare crosses Laurel Road. Neighbors have complained about it for years. On Aug. 3, they got still another horrific example of just how dangerous it is.
And they got an even more brutal glimpse of just how cold-hearted and unfeeling some people can be.
Sinclair never made it across Chester Pike.
She was struck and killed by a dark-colored Mercedes.
Then something almost as horrific happened. The driver did not stop. Instead, the car fled the scene. And Faith Sinclair was left to die in the street.
In the two months since that terrible night, many things have been learned about the accident.
It took police only a few days to track down the car they believed was responsible for snuffing out Faith Sinclair’s life.
They found a black Mercedes S-Class in a garage in Upper Darby. It was covered with a tarp. Neighbors indicated the windows of the garage recently had been tinted dark.
Police say the damage on the Mercedes, a crumpled front bumper, missing side-view mirror and smashed windshield, is what they would expect to find on the car that struck Sinclair.
They know who owns the vehicle. Lemuel Payne, 26, has been identified by Sharon Hill police as a “person of interest.”
Payne has not been charged in connection with the case. Through his attorney, he has declined to speak with authorities. In fact, no one has been charged in the hit-and-run.
That’s because, despite a $10,000 reward offered by the Citizens Crime Commission for information in the case, one thing remains a mystery.
Police know the car that struck Sinclair. They know who owns the car.
But they don’t know who was driving. And that’s where the investigation has stalled.
Now law enforcement is using a new tool in the search for Faith Sinclair’s killer.
The county’s newly seated Investigative Grand Jury is probing the case. Witnesses appeared before the panel in September. More apparently will do so in October.
The grand jury is a powerful crime-fighting tool, one that is often turned to when investigators hit a brick wall or are faced with an unwillingness on the part of potential witnesses to provide information.
In the words of one source close to the case, “the noose is tightening.”
Faith Sinclair, and those who knew and loved her, deserve no less.
They deserve to know who snuffed out her promising life and then so cavalierly fled the scene.
The popular word for this situation these days is called “closure.”
We have another one. It’s called justice.
Her family still waits for the answer to the question that has haunted them ever since. How could someone do such a thing?
We wonder the same thing.
This week we learned the county Investigative Grand Jury was looking at the case. It’s a key tool that is often used when investigators are having trouble getting people to come forward to talk about what they may know about the case.
Here is the editorial that appears in today’s print edition on the mystery involving Faith Sinclair:
We have not forgotten
Neither have Sharon Hill Police.
Nor the Delaware County District Attorney’s office.
It was exactly two months ago, on a summer Sunday night, when Faith Sinclair tried to cross Chester Pike in Sharon Hill.
It’s a bad intersection, where the busy thoroughfare crosses Laurel Road. Neighbors have complained about it for years. On Aug. 3, they got still another horrific example of just how dangerous it is.
And they got an even more brutal glimpse of just how cold-hearted and unfeeling some people can be.
Sinclair never made it across Chester Pike.
She was struck and killed by a dark-colored Mercedes.
Then something almost as horrific happened. The driver did not stop. Instead, the car fled the scene. And Faith Sinclair was left to die in the street.
In the two months since that terrible night, many things have been learned about the accident.
It took police only a few days to track down the car they believed was responsible for snuffing out Faith Sinclair’s life.
They found a black Mercedes S-Class in a garage in Upper Darby. It was covered with a tarp. Neighbors indicated the windows of the garage recently had been tinted dark.
Police say the damage on the Mercedes, a crumpled front bumper, missing side-view mirror and smashed windshield, is what they would expect to find on the car that struck Sinclair.
They know who owns the vehicle. Lemuel Payne, 26, has been identified by Sharon Hill police as a “person of interest.”
Payne has not been charged in connection with the case. Through his attorney, he has declined to speak with authorities. In fact, no one has been charged in the hit-and-run.
That’s because, despite a $10,000 reward offered by the Citizens Crime Commission for information in the case, one thing remains a mystery.
Police know the car that struck Sinclair. They know who owns the car.
But they don’t know who was driving. And that’s where the investigation has stalled.
Now law enforcement is using a new tool in the search for Faith Sinclair’s killer.
The county’s newly seated Investigative Grand Jury is probing the case. Witnesses appeared before the panel in September. More apparently will do so in October.
The grand jury is a powerful crime-fighting tool, one that is often turned to when investigators hit a brick wall or are faced with an unwillingness on the part of potential witnesses to provide information.
In the words of one source close to the case, “the noose is tightening.”
Faith Sinclair, and those who knew and loved her, deserve no less.
They deserve to know who snuffed out her promising life and then so cavalierly fled the scene.
The popular word for this situation these days is called “closure.”
We have another one. It’s called justice.
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