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Deputies Search For Hit And Run Driver Who Killed Polk Teen

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TBO Staff

Published: January 17, 2009

The Polk County Sheriff's Office is looking for a vehicle, possibly a Ford, that struck and killed a 17-year-old Haines City girl Friday night, officials said.

Samantha Hasting left home about 6:30 p.m. Friday to walk less than a mile to a friend's house. Her mother and her friend found her dead across the top of a barbed-wire fence on Bradbury Road about midnight, the sheriff's office said.

The mother had sent her daughter text messages about 9 p.m., but her daughter hadn't replied, the sheriff's office said. The friend also became concerned by about midnight when she realized Hasting had left to visit her hours earlier.

Based upon evidence at the scene, investigators think Hasting was walking northbound on Bradbury Road, south of Hinson Avenue, when she was struck from behind and thrown about 75 feet into the fence, the sheriff's office said.

Her belongings and debris were scattered for about 150 feet. Investigators think from the debris that the vehicle that struck her could be a 1990s Ford.

Investigators asked anyone who saw anything suspicious on Bradbury Road between 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday to call the Polk County Sheriff's Office at (863) 534-6200 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 226-8477.

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