Last Friday morning, a driver struck and killed a 92-year-old woman and her dog on Job's Fishing Road in front of Christ the King Parish Church in Mashpee Commons.
Police have identified the victim as Dorothy L. Ilott, a 92-year-old resident of Mashpee.
According to Mashpee police, who are already characterizing the homicide as an "accident" even though they say the investigation is still ongoing, the killing occurred around 7:21 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 8.
Police say they found Ilott lying in the northbound travel lane of Job’s Fishing Road with severe injuries. Emergency rescue personnel took Ilott to Falmouth Hospital, where she later died.
A dog that Ilott was walking also died on scene.
Police have not identified the perpetrator, but they report that the driver remained on the scene after the crash.
Photos of the scene from news photographer David Curran show a black Subaru sedan with a smashed windshield on the driver's side, next to a clearly-marked crosswalk with a fluorescent yellow "yield to pedestrians" pylon sign in the middle of the roadway.
Job's Fishing Road is a two-lane, 25 mph side street that connects Route 151 to Route 28 around the western edge of the Mashpee Commons shopping center, a 1980s "new urbanist" development.
An affordable public housing complex for lower-income seniors and disabled people is located one block to the south of the crash site, and the town's public library is located on the block to the north.
However, although the designers and developers of Mashpee Commons tout it as a "walkable" neighborhood, the block of Job's Fishing Road where Ilott died does not have any sidewalks – just a well-worn dirt path next to the curb.
