MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, MI (WOOD/CNN) – The family of a 6-year-old girl in Michigan is no longer celebrating her kindergarten graduation but is instead mourning her death following an alleged hit-and-run.
Taylor Davis, 6, was riding her bike with her cousins around her Muskegon Heights, MI, neighborhood Sunday morning when a man driving an SUV allegedly hit the little girl.
The 6-year-old later died of her injuries.
"This has been a devastating day for our whole family," said Taylor's cousin, Amanda Jones.
Instead of stopping, family says the man – later identified as 19-year-old Dakota Welch – sped away.
"Some of her bike was still under his truck when they caught him… You hit her and you ran, so you had no sympathy," Jones said.
As Welch fled, Lamonte Wilkinson, who says he heard the crash as he and his daughter were about to enter his house, quickly realized what had happened.
"I saw the bike right under there. I knew he hit somebody," he said.
Wilkinson asked a neighbor to watch his daughter and jumped back in his car to follow the suspect.
"He was flying, and I was right behind him the whole time," Wilkinson said. "It just wasn’t right. If he hit a car or something, I wouldn’t have chased him, but he hit an innocent, little girl."
Wilkinson says he followed Welch until the suspect got out of the car, removed his plate and walked in a house. He then called police and stayed until they arrived and arrested Welch.
Police Chief Joseph Thomas says without the help of the public, specifically Wilkinson, they wouldn’t have been able to find the suspect so quickly.
Jones says the family wants a harsh punishment for the driver, saying they believe the crash was purposeful.
"She wasn't in the street and the other kids who were with her, my other nieces, said that he [the driver] deliberately jumped the curb and hit her," Jones said.
Thomas would not comment on whether the crash is being investigated as an accident or an intentional act.
Online public records show Welch has nine arrests since 2016, including one for fleeing and eluding police, in Michigan’s Muskegon and Ottawa counties.
Copyright 2018 WOOD, Muskegon County Jail, Antoine Williams, Family photos via CNN. All rights reserved.
