Police seek truck in hit and run

The Monroe Police Department is seeking information on the driver of a truck that was captured on video moments before it struck and killed a Monroe bicyclist and then fled the scene.

Debbrah Marie Pesce, 53, was riding a bike in Monroe at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday was struck and killed by the driver of what appeared to be a 1990s era Ford F-series pickup, white with a blue or green stripe.

Pesce was riding her bike near the intersection of Old Owen Road and US 2 when she was struck. According to witnesses, there was a pickup truck behind another vehicle that was stopped on eastbound US 2. The pickup began revving the engine, then sped around the stopped vehicle, striking the bicyclist. The bicyclist was then hit by two more vehicles as they traveled through the intersection.

A friend of the woman said that she was a friendly, likable woman who had been going through a difficult period in her life in the last couple of years, but was beginning to turn things around.

“She was a very bubbly person but kind of shy,” said her friend Quinn Jay, who met her at Take the Next Step and became friends with her in the last several months. “She was extremely excited if you just asked her how she was or gave her a hug. Despite all of her hard times she always had a smile on her face.”

She had been homeless, living in her car, for some time, but had recently started living at the Brookside Motel, volunteering to help paint the motel and to help out with the after school children’s program atMonroe’s Take the Next Step, a resource center for people in crisis or who are homeless. She was trying to find cleaning work, she said.

Her car had recently broken down, forcing her to walk on ankles that had once been badly injured and were at times painful, said Jay.

Yet she was a cheerful presence at Take The Next Step dinners, she said.

“My son and a friend were goofing around at the table and accidentally spilled a bit of soda and a stream ran down the table past three people and landed on her lap and she teased my son about it all night,” said Jay.

Pesce liked children and encouraged Jay’s daughter in her love of art, said Jay.