Victim Sees Hit-and-Run Driver Sentenced to Prison

Heather Hensl holds a photo of herself taken in the emergency room after she was struck. "I felt like something was poured over my head," she recalled, "and it was my blood." Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

 

The hit-and-run driver who on April 13, 2015 drove her Dodge Cruiser onto the Spruce Street sidewalk and hit a physician assistant on her way to work at NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital was sentenced to two to six years in prison, the Daily News reported.

Tiffany Murdaugh, 35, hit Heather Hensl, 38, straight on at about 20-25 miles an hour leaving her with a broken knee, a broken tibia in two places and a deep wound in her forehead.

Murdaugh pleaded guilty to assault and reckless endangerment.

At the sentencing, according to the News, Murdaugh, who lives in Philadelphia, cried continuously and apologized to Hensl.

"I am truly sorry for the injuries that occurred," she said. "I wish it were me and not them."

"Although it may not have been intentional for you to drive up on the sidewalk," remarked the judge, Justice Gregory Carro, "it certainly was intentional for you to take drugs and get behind the wheel of a car."

Interview with Heather Hensl, May 2015

In a Trib article following the hit-and-run, which occurred near the Spruce Street School, Hensl recalled that the impact caused her to “fly over the driver’s side and land back on the sidewalk.”

Witnesses and the DA’s office said the car narrowly missed a mother with her two young children on their way to the Spruce Street School.

During the sentencing, Hensl said she "had the added task of pursuing justice for myself. I was told early on by the NYPD that we probably would never find this hit-and-run offender," according to the News.

"I persisted to call and email daily—they knew the car," Hensl added. "They threatened to close the case at one point and the stress and mental anguish was unbearable."

In the NYPD’s first public account of the arrest, reported by the Trib, then-Capt. Mark Iocco, the 1st Precinct’s commanding officer, said that after finally managing to contact Murdaugh by email, detectives convinced her to come in and answer questions as part of their investigation of an insurance claim she had filed over damage to her car in the incident.

Iocco said Murdaugh implicated herself in the crime by telling them that she was the sole driver of the car that day.

“Then we didn’t need the positive ID and she was arrested,” Iocco said.

According to Iocco, Murdaugh "made a verbal statement that she was smoking marijuana maybe and maybe she blacked out. She was confused.”