NEWPORT NEWS, Va., (WVEC) -- A 59-year-old died after a car hit his sedan head-on on Interstate 664 Friday morning.
Sgt. Michelle Anaya with Virginia State Police said 59-year-old Leonardo Maldonado of the 600 block of 31st St. in Newport News was killed when Ashley Nicole Perkins' car collided with his Honda Accord. Anaya said Perkins was driving northbound in the southbound lanes of the interstate. The collision happened shortly before 1:30 a.m.
“I am almost willing to say I could be destroyed (by his death), but I won’t allow myself to be,” said Maldonado's wife, Shawna Lawson, who told 13News Now he was on his way home from work when he died.
“He worked two jobs. He worked down at Buckroe Beach at the pier -- at the fishing pier on the beach --and he also worked at Walmart’s distribution," said Lawson.
Dakota Wesson said he use to work with Maldonado at Walmart.
“He’d do the same routine. He’d go to work, and he’d come straight home, and it’s just a tragedy what happened to him," Wesson stated.
Anaya said Perkins, who lives in the 100 block of Acre Farm Rd. in Hampton, left the crash scene, then showed up at Sentara Careplex Hospital. Charges against Perkins are pending.
"I, too, made mistakes in my youth," Lawson told 13News Now. "Somebody forgave me, and I have to extend that to somebody else.”
