MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The woman who hit a man and then left him on the sidewalk to die pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Wednesday.
Curteria Luellyn,23, was sentenced to eight years behind bars for vehicular homicide and another year for leaving the scene of a crime involving death.
She is expected to ask a judge to suspend most or all of her sentence when she appears in court on Tuesday.
According to investigators, the suspect had consumed alcohol and smoked marijuana before getting behind the wheel the night she hit 59-year-old Curtis Echols in Orange Mound.
In 2014, WREG reported Echols was walking home on a Saturday night in the 1500 block of Hugenot Street when Luellyn ran off the road, hit a fence, and then slammed into him.
Witnesses described hearing a loud boom and then seeing a Chevy Malibu start up and then take off, leaving the cancer survivor lying on the sidewalk.
The car that hit Echols reportedly belonged to a 25-year-old who lent it to friends that night.
When they returned the car, it was damaged so she called police.
Luellyn was arrested the next day.
