A 28-year-old hit and run driver with a rap sheet and a suspended license was arrested at his Bronx home, just blocks from where he allegedly mowed down a beloved nursing assistant in front of her horrified fiancé as the couple was returning home from Christmas shopping.
Cops picked up convicted felon Sheldon Reid at his home on Murdock Avenue in The Bronx at 10:30 p.m. — two hours after he allegedly left 42-year-old Sonya Powell to die in a crumpled heap in the middle of Baychester Avenue Friday night.
Reid, who served two years for assault and was paroled in 2006 was awaiting arraignment on charges of leaving the scene of an accident involving a fatality and aggravated unlicensed operator of a vehicle.
David Sheppard, Powell’s fiancé, 41, was inconsolable yesterday and he walked outside clutching a framed photos of the woman he was going to marry.
“I can’t believe it,” was all he said before he broke down and cried.
Powell, a native of Jamaica, had worked at the St. Francis nursing home in Riverdale. Tamar Esty, 29, a friend and former co-worker, said Powell was excited about getting married Sheppard.
A witness, Dane Clark, 18, saw the driver in a 2007 gray Infiniti hit Powell.
“The driver stopped the car down the block, put the car in reverse and kept repeating,’Oh my God, oh my God'” before speeding away.
Powell was pronounced dead at Jacobi Hospital.