BY JULIE BENAMATI
MAHAFFEY — A Patton woman told police she was on her way home from heroin-addiction treatment Wednesday when she drove off the road and killed two pedestrians, a source involved with the investigation told The Tribune-Democrat.
Bobbi Jo Morgan, 22, of Patton, was traveling south on Route 36 in the Clearfield County borough of Mahaffey on Wednesday morning when she veered off the road.
Her car struck 63-year-old Bertha Kitchen, who was pushing her 3-year-old granddaughter, Samantha, in a stroller, according to police documents.
Kitchen was taking the child on their daily walk to the post office when the crash occurred shortly after 11 a.m. Kitchen was pronounced dead at Clearfield Hospital by Deputy Coroner Michael Polachek.
The child was taken to Punxsutawney Hospital, where she was pronounced dead by emergency room staff.
Both died of blunt-force trauma.
After striking the woman and the child, Morgan’s 1990 Buick sedan traveled through two yards and an alley, destroying a wooden fence, before coming to rest in a driveway. An unidentified 8-year-old girl, who was walking nearby, sustained minor injuries from the flying wooden debris, police said.
The source said Morgan was returning from the Discovery House treatment facility, near the Clearfield County Airport in Lawrence Township, about 50 miles from Patton.
William Shaw, Clearfield County district attorney, said his office is working with state police in Punxsutawney and that charges had not been filed as of late Thursday.
“The case is under investigation. And it is premature to say if charges are going to be filed or not,” Shaw said.
He would not confirm whether toxicology tests were conducted.
“All I can say is, the issue is under intense investigation,” Shaw said. “I do intend to get to the bottom of this.”
Information obtained at the Cambria County clerk of courts office shows Morgan entered a guilty plea in October 2005 to conspiracy to deliver drugs.
Records also show that Judge Gerard Long sentenced Morgan to four months of in-house detention.
The charges stemmed from an incident in February 2005, when Morgan sold six small bags of heroin for $180 to an undercover officer who was working with the county’s drug task force. Morgan then was living at HAIDA Village apartments in Hastings.
The Rev. John White, former pastor at Mahaffey United Methodist Church, said the town is devastated by the deaths of Kitchen and her granddaughter.
A little Dora the Explorer table and chairs set remained on the front stoop of Kitchen’s mobile home on Sheffield Road, where she was known to baby-sit local children.
White, who retired last month, said he came to know the family after he married the little girl’s parents about two years ago.
“They were good people,” White said.
