Senior gets 4 months in jail for fatal hit-and-run of teen

A senior has received four months in jail and a one-year driving ban for the hit-and-run death of a teenager in Port Coquitlam in 2013.

Irwin Richard Franz, 75, admitted to hitting 16-year-old Annie Leung in a crosswalk at the corner of Pitt River Road and Mary Hill Road on Sept. 12, 2013.

She was walking home from school at the time.

When he hit her, Franz stopped and got out of his truck, saw what happened and then drove away.

On March 18, 2015, he pleaded guilty to failing to remain at the scene of an accident that resulted in the death of another person.

Franz spoke to Global News reporter Ted Chernecki in July, 2014, and says he confessed to police just days after the accident.

“I was in a haze, just in shock,” says Franz. “I walked down there and said ‘oh my god’ – am I involved in this? I didn’t know for sure, I didn’t know.”

“I walked down, and to see if I could help, and she had all the help she could have, and I heard the ambulance coming, so I just — I just gotta walk away and get my thoughts sorted out,” says Franz.

“I wasn’t even thinking – I don’t remember driving home.”

In the days following the crash, Coquitlam RCMP released surveillance footage from the scene, asking for public’s help to identify the driver.

Leung’s parents also made an emotional plea for the driver of the truck to come forward.

Annie was an only child.

“Our family was deeply impacted when our daughter, Annie, was taken away from us in the accident,” her parents said in a statement.

“We have suffered a tremendous sorrow for the sudden loss of our daughter, Annie. She was only 16 and should have had a beautiful life ahead of her. However, she died so suddenly in this hit and run accident and we didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye to her. Our family has been devastated ever since then.”