CRISP COUNTY, Ga. — A man was sentenced to 20 years on Thursday for hitting a woman with their car, killing them and driving away without reporting it to the authorities, according to a press release from Crisp County District Attorney Brad Rigby.
After a four-day jury trial, 35-year-old Travis Leon Waters was sentenced to 20 years with 15 of those being served in prison.
He was found guilty in the Sept. 9, 2019, death of Ethelene Lewis, who had been walking along Joe Wright Drive in Cordele when she was hit by a car around 150 feet from her own driveway, the district attorney's office said.
Lewis was found dead the next day in a drainage ditch with her purse and shoes on the side of the road.
According to the district attorney's office, Waters was driving from Ashburn in a blue Chevy Tahoe when Waters hit Lewis after he failed to stop.
But they say Waters failed to do a lot of other things, too.
They say he failed to call 911, failed to help Lewis and failed to notify anyone of anything, according to the district attorney's office press release.
After Lewis' body was found, Waters instructed his girlfriends to file a false report with the police saying that she hit "something" in the same area where Lewis' body was found, the district attorney said.
But the investigation from the Cordele Police Department and the Georgia State Patrol's Specialized Collision Reconstruction team pointed the investigation toward Waters.
They discovered debris from the Tahoe at the site, the district attorney's office said.
The moment that Waters hit Lewis was also caught on city cameras, and the video shows Waters driving straight to a car wash after hitting Lewis, according to the press release. The vehicle was seriously damaged on the front passenger side of the car.
Get more news and information from 13WMAZ by downloading our 13WMAZ+ app on our Roku and Amazon Fire Stick devices.
This allows you to watch more 13WMAZ on-demand and access your favorite 13WMAZ shows like Central Georgia Focus and our Summer Safety Guide.