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Authorities Looking For Hit-And-Run Driver In Nash County

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NASHVILLE, N.C. — Friends and family of a Nash County woman are hoping the driver who killed her during an evening walk will turn himself in. Sharon Coley, 47, died Tuesday night after a driver hit her on a country road, then drove away.

Melinda Batts cannot shake the memory of the moment her stepmother died. Batts and her daughter, Danielle, were right next to Coley when it happened.

"I looked over and Sharon was laying in the ditch and her shoes and socks were laying on the ground and he drove off," she said. "I don't know how he can drive off and just leave her laying in the ditch to die. I don't know how somebody could do that,"

Coley was walking on Harrison Road facing oncoming traffic when a truck came from behind. State troopers say the driver first swerved off the side of the road, then jerked the truck back toward the road where it hit Coley.

Authorities said the driver is still on the run, but he or she left behind evidence from the collision -- a broken driver's side mirror and a broken headlight.

"[She was a] good-hearted person who would do anything for anybody -- caring, loving, considerate," Sharon's husband, Pete Coley, said. "I don't know how a person can live with themselves doing something like this and just driving off, I mean, things happen, I realize that, but you just can't go off and leave someone like that. It's just not right."

The state Highway Patrol says the suspect was driving a red or dark-colored Chevrolet or GMC pickup truck. The pickup has a broken headlight and side mirror and was driving east into Nash County from the Franklin County line.

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