A driver who killed a 71-year-old granny and injured her daughter in a car chase with cops was busted this week – after two months on the run, police said Tuesday.
Robert Matthews, 35, was picked up on a warrant Monday morning and faces a total of 18 raps — including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and felony assaul– in connection to the May 9 crash in Bushwick that killed Juanita Vidal, cops said.
Vidal was walking with her 44-year-old daughter Jessica around 5 p.m. at Eldert Street and Knickerbocker Avenue when Matthews’ speeding Mazda CX-5 SUV plowed into her, authorities said.
Heartbreaking footage from the scene shows Jessica kneeling beside her mother at the scene and weeping as a cop futilely administers CPR.
Vidal was taken to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center but later died from her injuries, cops said.
Jessica was taken to the Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she was listed in critical but stable condition.
Surveillance footage obtained by The Post shows the SUV — which sources say cops were pursuing for a traffic infraction — speeding east on Eldert Street through the intersection and nearly hitting a red car traveling on Knickerbocker Street as a police car trails behind.
Cops confirmed that the driver disobeyed two stop signs and swerved to the left to avoid slamming into another car before barreling into the mother and daughter.
He then hit a Chevy van, with the force pushing the van into a Honda, police said.
Matthews ran off on foot, heading north on Eldert Street, cops said.
He was arraigned on an indictment in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Tuesday, and ordered held without bail. His next court date is scheduled for Sept. 18.
Friends previously told The Post that Vidal had three children in New York and more in her native Puerto Rico, as well as Boston.
She had at least 10 grandchildren — four from her daughter and six between her two sons.
“I feel bad. Everybody is sad,” friend George Alvarez, 65, said.
“When I saw the video, the way [the suspect] was driving, he was a maniac. At the speed he was going, the daughter is lucky to be alive.”
“She was a healthy woman,” Alvarez added of Vidal. “He cut her life short, and I’m angry because she was my friend.”
Additional reporting by Desheania Andrews
