NYC driver wanted for horrific hit-and-run death of elderly woman nabbed after nearly five years on the lam
A Queens hit-run driver wanted in the 2019 horror death of a great-grandmother was finally nabbed Thursday after nearly five years on the lam, cops said.
“When [the detective] called me, I was numb, I couldn’t believe it, I was speechless,’’ said Gloria Lascano-Vargas, the oldest of tragic victim Gilda Lascano’s five children, to The Post on Friday.
“I was like, ‘Are you sure, are you positive?’ And [the detective] said, ‘Yeah, the DNA test that we did, the blood that was on the airbag, you know, it confirmed and matched the DNA,’ ” the daughter recalled of the pair’s 5 p.m. call Thursday.
“I called my brother, my two sisters. We all were all on the line, and I told them what the detective told me,’’ said Lascano-Vargas, 54.
“It’s about time.’’
Suspect Naquan Young, 46, was picked up on a fugitive warrant in Pennsylvania and extradited back to New York City, officials said.
Young had been sought in the gruesome killing of Lascano, 72, after his gray Lexus SUV blew through a red light around 1:15 a.m. in Ozone Park on Sept. 10, 2019, and smashed into a burgundy Honda CRV in which she was a passenger, cops said.
The impact sent the Honda flying into the facade of a flower shop and Lascano through the CRV’s windshield and under a nearby parked car, cops said.
The elderly woman was a cleaning lady and had been heading home from her night shift with another coworker at the time, her daughter said.
Lascano-Vargas said her mother, who had eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, was a “half a block or maybe less than half a block from the house’’ when killed.
Lascano was declared dead at the scene, while the Honda driver, an unidentified 56-year-old woman, was hospitalized.
Young fled on foot, officials said.
The circumstances of his arrest all these years later were not immediately clear.
He is charged with criminally negligent homicide, second-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault and leaving the scene of an accident.
The suspect was arraigned in Queens criminal court Friday and is being held without bail, court officials said.
Lascano-Vargas said her mom worked as a cleaner for decades, toiling to buy a house in Ozone Park for her children.
The victim had three daughters and two boys, one of whom passed away when he was 18, the daughter said.
“All the hard work … was really to buy that house so everyone can live comfortably,’’ Lascano-Vargas said. “And she was in that house, I would say, two years.
“She just loved to be surrounded with her grandkids, you know, and around her kids.
“I used to live in Jackson Heights,’’ the daughter added. “After my mom’s death and stuff, I couldn’t stay in Queens anymore. So I moved to Westchester [County].”
Lascano-Vargas said she was at Young’s arraignment Friday — and plans to be at his next court hearing in late July with her two sons and her two sisters in tow to continue to monitor the case.
“All we want is for him to do the time,’’ she said. Once we hear how many years he’s gonna do is where we can finally put it to rest.’’
-Additional reporting by Patrick Reilly
