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closeBELLEFONTE — Prosecutors have decided there is not enough evidence to pursue a felony charge against driver Michael Babin Jr., who police say briefly left the scene of the March 7 crash that killed disabled pedestrian Scott Hilliard.
The only charge Babin now faces is DUI.
“Nothing seems right,” Hilliard’s mother, Susan said. “Something’s missing.”
“I really don’t feel that he’s getting any justice,” she said of her son.
District Attorney Michael Madeira told Hilliard’s family last week that he combed through the evidence but couldn’t find enough to refile a felony charge for leaving the scene of the crash against Babin, a 20- year-old Bellefonte resident.
“I understand why they’re disappointed,” Madeira said. “So am I. I wish we had more, but we don’t.”
District Judge Allen Sinclair had dismissed the charge in June, saying Babin “tried” leaving the scene for minutes to pick up his grandmother and drive back.
It was the only felony he faced after Madeira found there wasn’t enough evidence for vehicular homicide charges.
“He’s getting away with it,” said Susan Hilliard, of Karthaus. “We know he did not do it on purpose, but there was too many other things that was careless.”
Bellefonte police say Babin had just made the slight right turn from Bishop Street onto Airport Road around 6 p.m. when he hit 41-year-old Hilliard, who was trying to get to a bike path that doesn’t stretch all the way to the end of the road.
Babin told police he knew he hit something, but called his grandmother who lived about a half-mile away and picked her up before they called 911.
In that time, Susan Hilliard said, she didn’t want her son to lie there by himself.
Babin later admitted to smoking marijuana three hours before, and playing with the radio when the crash happened.
“We’re all upset about the Centre County justice system not doing its job,” said Angela Jackson, Scott Hilliard’s sister, who also lives in Karthaus. “Listen, his body flew in the air 73 feet,” Jackson said. “I’ve hit a lot of deer in my lifetime the size of my brother’s body — none of them flew in the air. How fast was Michael going that my brother’s body flew 73 feet in the air?”
Police say Babin wasn’t speeding, and Madeira said they don’t have the new evidence they would to present to Sinclair in order to refile the charge for leaving the scene.
“What are we going to do about it?” Susan Hilliard said. “What choices do we have? Because they’re the ones setting the law. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
Hilliard said she and her two daughters expressed extreme disappointment with Madeira and the investigation.
“I realize he came back,” Jackson said of Babin. “But the point is he left. I could smoke a joint and drive around and hit someone and not worry, I’m not going to get no time. It’s OK to hit someone and leave the scene of the accident and come back and it’s OK. What’s this telling people, especially young kids?”
Jackson said it seems the system has failed more than just her brother — Babin, too.
She said she asked Madeira to fight for a probation sentence instead of jailtime so that Babin will spend more time under the court’s supervision.
“It would be up to the Centre County justice system to give him guidance, to make him a functional human being in society,” Jackson said. “But by not giving him any time he’s not going to get that.”
Hilliard and Jackson say one thing they now want is to be able to talk to Babin, but even though they’ve expressed that before in the press, they say he hasn’t contacted them. “Losing Scott has really changed my life,” Jackson said. “Especially after the DA’s visit. It’s hard to believe in something when you see it’s not working for you.”
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