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Police Make Arrest In Fatal Hit-And-Run

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By JOSH POLTILOVE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 8, 2008

DAVENPORT - DAVENPORT - Trucker Jeffrey Lee Williams saw a driver in an SUV hit a pedestrian on U.S. 27 in Davenport, then pull into a gas station.

He followed and encountered a woman standing beside a gas pump, holding a nozzle, but she wasn't pumping gas, Williams said.

"I said to her, 'Do you know you just hit a young lady back there?' And she didn't answer me. I asked her again, and she said, 'No, I didn't.' She said it wasn't her truck: It was another red truck," Williams said.

Williams didn't believe her story and thought the woman might be in shock. He saw front-end damage to her vehicle, and he went to get a pen so he could jot down her license plate number. She drove off.

Four days later, on Monday, Polk County deputies arrested Lisa Reilly, 37, of Davenport, in the death of the pedestrian, 34-year-old Jennifer M. Prokop of Davenport. Prokop was 10 weeks' pregnant, Sheriff Grady Judd said. She died at the scene.
Prokop was not visibly pregnant; the medical examiner discovered her pregnancy during the autopsy, sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Rodgers said.

Deputies say Reilly was the driver of the SUV, a red Ford Explorer, and was under the influence of a prescription drug used to treat seizures and anxiety at the time of the crash.

"I don't give a damn if she was on rubbing alcohol," Dave Vanover, Prokop's boyfriend, said Monday. "There's no excuse for this. This is horrible."

The hit-and-run happened about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday as Prokop was walking on the grassy east shoulder of U.S. 27 near Polo Park Boulevard. The Ford was northbound on the highway and had driven onto the grass to go around a tractor-trailer, deputies said.

The Ford got back on the highway, turned and headed south on U.S. 27, deputies said. Its right front fender and hood had extensive damage.

Video at the gas station showed the driver of the Ford was a thin blond woman, about 5 feet tall, wearing blue shorts and a reddish-pink top.

Deputies tracked a 2003 Ford Explorer registered to Reilly's husband. When they spoke with him, he said Reilly told him she had hit a semi on U.S. 27 on Wednesday, an arrest affidavit states.

She later told deputies that while traveling in the fast lane on U.S. 27, "she changed lanes into the slow right lane and hit the lady, but thought she hit the truck," the affidavit said.

"The suspect said she pulled into the Kangaroo/Citgo parking lot to check her vehicle. The suspect said a man approached her yelling at her and saying something about her tag."

Reilly, of 204 Cordova Ave., told deputies she was scared and drove home.

She was arrested about 2 a.m. Monday and charged with leaving the scene of a crash. She was in jail, and no bail had been set.

"We are going to be working with the state attorney's office and pursue additional charges," sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Wood said.

Reilly was arrested in April and charged with misdemeanor battery. That case is pending, according to the state attorney's office for Polk County.
Vanover said he and Prokop recently moved in together.

"Me and that girl were inseparable," he said. "How can that lady not have no remorse to run over a human being and keep going?"

News Channel 8 reporter Krista Klaus contributed to this report. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691 or jpoltilove@tampatrib.com.

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