Brother of Phoenix hit-and-run victim Genieva Vega pleads for driver to 'come clean'

All right, it is Silent Witness Saturday. Sergeant Cherie Lee joining us with details on a fatal hit and run alongside Joseph Vega. Both of you, thank you so much for coming in here this morning. Sergeant, I want to start with you. Give us the details of this particular case. This happened just last month. Yeah, so on October 24th, around 7 p.m. at night, All right. Janie Vega and her dog were walking and crossing a street around the area of 800 East Missouri Avenue when a vehicle struck both of them. They were, she was transported to the hospital where she later died from her injuries. The vehicle that we're seeking is a... Light colored Toyota Sienna van. So anybody with information, we're asking to call Silent Witness. And it's kind of like a champagne color, right? Kind of like a goldy looking color? Yeah, like a gold champagne, tannish looking. Hmm. Joe, you were her brother. What has this been like for your family? I can only imagine how devastating this has been. Yeah, it's been like... Complete shock just out of nowhere just like paralyzing just like feeling like you got to run around and do a million different things but just not having the strength to just take a step every day has been just kind of just freestyling like kind of because I mean you don't even realize all the loops that need to have to be closed like when someone dies but especially in a case like this like you want to get all your friends to kind of do the investigative work alongside like the police doing their job too just because you want to have that. Rather be peace of mind or you just want to know exactly how it happened, but it's just a lot to have to like kind of put the pieces of it together while also having to like deal with the fact that they're not there. Like you like I get the sense that like she'll just kind of like the last time I was here we were. visiting her with my my friends and my family and like she was showing me all her like cool spots to be around and all the hiking spots all the food spots and just being here the past like week and a half I've been like just getting the sense that I'm gonna see her but like just I know why I'm here and I know that's not gonna happen but it's just I don't know it's it's just a lot to deal with. I can't even imagine. Joe if people know what happened or out there what would you say to them? Like, witnesses? Sure. Or the someone that knows something about who is driving that gold minivan. I would say it would be best for y'all to just, like, come clean and just make sure that errors like this don't happen again. Because this is easily, like, this kind of tragedy can happen to anybody. Like, she was literally walking to the grocery store, just dropped off from hanging out with her boyfriend all day and about to meet up with him. I'm just... For after like hanging out for a little bit just to kind of reset and then just come back together. But the boyfriend was like the last person to text her and then you just didn't hear from her and knew that she would have responded like pretty soon afterwards receiving that text from her. And he was kind of left in the dark for like longer than I was. And like just timing wise. I think I found out before everybody because I was like the emergency contact. And, um, yeah, it was, it was hard for me when I found out because I was, I was literally working, uh, an overnight shift. I work at the hospital myself. So I was like five hours, four hours into my shift. I got the call like around 1145 from like Phoenix PD. And, uh, they're asking me questions like, do you have a sister living in Phoenix? And, and like, what is their date of birth? And I was like, I thought this was like a scam call at first. And like, these questions are just a little too specific, like a little. just strange and then they informed me that like your sister and her dog has been involved in a hit and run and she's in critical care right now and um they're being transported to the hospital right now and i mean i work in critical care so i kind of know exactly what goes on i know that that's one of the last barriers between like life and death i know some people can recover and get out Mm-hmm. But that's usually the last place people see. Well, Joe, we are so sorry for your family. Thank you for your time, Lane. Sergeant, if folks know anything about this case, how can they come forward? Yeah, they can contact the Phoenix Police Department or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS or 480-TESTIGO in Spanish. They can also submit a tip online at silentwitness.org. All right. Sergeant, Joe, thank you so much. We appreciate your time here this morning. We hope that someone somewhere knows something and can help solve this case. We'll be right back.