Chicago, Illinois: Woman, 69, Killed in West Garfield Park Hit-and-Run on Madison Street

A 69-year-old woman died after a white sedan struck her as she crossed West Madison Street in West Garfield Park on Wednesday night and the driver left the scene, Chicago police said. The driver did not stop after the crash, and detectives are still looking for the car.

The crash happened around 9:45 p.m. in the 4200 block of West Madison Street, on Chicago's West Side. Police said the woman was crossing the street when a white sedan traveling west struck her. The sedan kept going, and the driver fled the scene.

The woman suffered severe trauma. Chicago Fire Department paramedics treated her at the scene and took her to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she later died, police said. The reports published on Thursday morning did not give a time for her death beyond that she died at the hospital after the crash.

The search for the driver

Area Four detectives are investigating the crash. Police have not released the woman's name. They have not said whether they have identified a suspect, and the reports gave no further description of the driver or the car beyond its color, that it was a sedan, and that it was traveling west. No license plate number was reported.

That leaves the investigation with one clear lead for the public to watch for: a white sedan that left the 4200 block of West Madison Street on Wednesday night without stopping. Police have given no further detail in the published reports about how they are tracing the car, and no arrest had been announced by Thursday morning.

West Garfield Park sits on Chicago's West Side, and Madison Street is one of the main streets that runs through it. The 4200 block is a stretch where homes and storefronts stand close to the road, and people cross Madison Street on foot every day. A crash there on a Wednesday night becomes a neighborhood story fast, because the people who live nearby walk the same street and want to know what happened and whether the driver will be found.

The case now rests on the police investigation. Detectives will have to find the car and the driver from what the scene and any witnesses can tell them, and until they do, the woman's family has no name to give the public and no answer about why the driver left. The reports so far carry only the facts the police have released: the time, the place, the car, and the loss.