Police seek vehicle suspected in deadly hit-and-run

TAMPA (FOX 13) - A short walk to pick up some flowers Wednesday turned into a hit-and-run crash that killed a 53-year-old Tampa woman.

Theresa Williams's husband, George Williams said his wife loved collecting flowers from neighbors and turning them into arrangements that she'd either keep or give to friends.

She was only supposed to be gone for a short time Wednesday night.

"She said, 'I'll be back in 30 minutes,' and the next thing I knew the police were knocking on the door," George Williams said.

Theresa, who was going to pick up clippings from a neighbor, had barely made it a block from their Hillsborough Avenue apartment before a car hit her near the intersection of N. 51st Street at around 11 p.m. and kept going.

Tampa Police said she died in the street.

"She was a wonderful, wonderful lady and it's my loss, my tragic loss," George Williams told FOX 13. "I walk through the door and she's not there. I look for her to come through and she's not there. She was a very kindhearted person."

"Teresa was a very sweet, kind old lady and anytime I needed her, she'd be there," added Melissa Bopp, one of Theresa's neighbors. "A real heartless person would do something like that, just leave someone dead in the middle of the road."

George and Theresa Williams have been married five years. He said she was her best friend.

"I miss my wife," he said, adding a message for the driver who killed his wife. "Come on, have a conscience. Would you like someone to leave a loved one of yours like that? Come on, have a conscience. Turn yourself in."

Tampa Police are following leads and looking for surveillance video up and down Hillsborough Avenue. The agency asks anyone with information, or may have witnessed the accident, to call 813-231-6130 or Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay at 1-800-873-8477.