A Harlem man was arrested for fatally mowing down a 3-year-old girl as she crossed a Manhattan street with her mother and siblings in July, police said.
Devon Joseph, 41, was arrested Friday morning and charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian in connection with the July 11 collision, police said. He was ticketed for the charge, prosecutors said.
Little Jaynelyse Valdez was headed to Harlem Hospital with her 37-year-old mother and two brothers, ages 2 and 4 months, to visit their terminally ill aunt in the intensive care unit, with a home-cooked meal in hand for other visitors, according to reports an online fundraiser created by the family.
The family was crossing the street just steps from the hospital when Joseph, driving a Nissan Pathfinder southbound on Lenox Ave., turned left onto W. 135th St. and encountered them in the crosswalk about 7:40 p.m. said. Both Joseph and Jaynelyse’s family received the green light, police said.
“The man who hit her picked her up and took her to the hospital,” a witness said of Joseph at the time. “He was with his family, but he had no intention of leaving her.”
Despite the prompt treatment she received, Jaynelyse could not be saved.
“It was terrible,” said the witness. ‘That poor baby and her mother. She was hysterical.”
Joseph also hit the girl’s 2-year-old brother, Jonvier, but he only suffered a blow to the head, the family said. Her mother and brother were not affected.
After rushing the child to the hospital, Joseph remained at the scene.
Jaynelyse was just days away from celebrating her birthday when she was killed, heartbroken relatives said.
“She was going to be four on the 15th,” little Jaynelyse’s paternal grandmother Kenya said earlier from their home in New Rochelle. “She was so happy, so smart, so caring.”
Kenya, 52, said her granddaughter was mature for her age.
“Jaynelyse was an old lady in a little girl’s body,” she said. “She started at about seven months.”
Her first word was “mama,” Kenya recalled darkly.
“There are no words,” the little girl’s besotted father said at the time. “There are no words for it.”
