The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net 

THE daughter of a 55-year-old man killed in a hit-and-run accident on Madeira Street is pleading for the person responsible to come forward, saying her father did not deserve to be treated “like an animal”.

Simone Russell, 37, initially thought it was a joke when her uncle told her through a Whatsapp message on Wednesday that her father, Doyle Russell, had been hit by a car while she was at work. When she got home, her uncle called to confirm the distressing news.

A week before the incident, she had taken her father out for lunch and to visit her children. She said he was in good spirits and told her and his grandchildren that he loved them.

“I’ve told them their grandfather passed, and they all broke down into tears,” she told The Tribune. “So I had to control myself to be stronger for them because they just saw him.” 

Visibly distraught, Ms Russell said she is still in shock over her father’s death.

According to police, the incident happened on Wednesday. Traffic officers said Mr Russell seemed to be lying in the eastbound lane on Madeira Street when he was struck by a red vehicle, believed to be a Ford Mustang, travelling east along the same corridor. The driver failed to remain stationary. 

Mr Russell had lived on Madeira Street for ten years and was living alone at the time of his death. He made a living selling coconuts. Ms Russell said her father would sometimes visit friends in the neighbourhood, but he was always home by 9pm. His family expressed disbelief that he would be out late at night and are suspicious about why he was lying in the street. 

She suspects foul play and said it was out of character for her father to be lying on the road voluntarily.

Describing her father as a free spirit, hardworking, and a devoted family man, Ms Russell said he had three adult children and five grandchildren.

She called on the driver to have a conscience and turn themselves in.

“For a person to just do something like that with no remorse, it’s like they don’t care,” she said. “He has family out here that loves him. So justice has to be served in that incident. He’s not an animal.”