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Detroit hit-and-run driver sentenced for 2024 crash that killed mechanic
It was sentencing day for Robert Hughes Jr. In August 2024, Hughes was driving on Van Dyke on Detroit’s east side when he slammed into a parked car. The impact was so severe that the parked car struck Rodger Pitts, killing him.
DETROIT (FOX 2) - A hit-and-run driver who killed a neighborhood mechanic on Detroit’s east side found out his fate in court on Friday.
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It was sentencing day for Robert Hughes Jr. In August 2024, Hughes was driving on Van Dyke on Detroit’s east side when he slammed into a parked car. The impact was so severe that the parked car struck Rodger Pitts, killing him.
The mechanic had been walking to the corner store on a warm summer's day. The sound of the impact was captured on home security video.
But Hughes took off and wasn’t arrested until the following year.
"The thing that bothers me the most is that I don’t believe he got up to kill somebody that morning, but once it happened, why didn’t he turn himself in? He did not even come back. They had to pick him up. He was going on with his life," said Dollinda Burns. "He took away the favorite mechanic of the neighborhood, the favorite father, the favorite uncle, the favorite cousin. You impacted this whole family."
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The judge sentenced Hughes to three to fifteen years in prison for reckless driving causing death and three to fifteen years for failing to stop.
The sentences will be served concurrently.
"I have been doing everything in my power to better myself, and I want to apologize to the family sincerely because my father was murdered in 2003, so I completely understand how they feel with the grief," said defendant Robert Hughes Jr.