“It’s very painful to turn in your child for something you know they were not raised to be.”
**Content warning: This article contains graphic details that may be distressing to some readers.
Four teens in the US have been arrested in connection with a fatal carjacking that dragged a 73-year-old woman along the road, severing her arm.
Linda Frickey was killed in in the Mid-City area of New Orleans, Louisiana on Monday when her car was hijacked as she left work.
A 17-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl and two 15-year-old girls were taken into custody at the Juvenile Justice Intervention Centre on one count of second-degree murder, according to the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD).
Local media reports that the teenagers are accused of hijacking Ms Frickey’s car and dragging her for more than a block as she was tangled in the driver’s seatbelt. Police understand that her arm was severed from her body as she was thrown from the vehicle.
Witnesses to the horrific incident tried to intervene and described the alleged carjackers as “reckless”.
“I got out of my vehicle screaming, ‘Stop, stop, you are dragging someone.’ He took off with the vehicle. Still dragging her. Reckless. No care for human beings at all,” one man, Todd Ecker, told local media outlet WDSU.
Officers responding to a call of a carjacking found Ms Frickey lying on the ground unresponsive and pronounced her dead at the scene.
Three arrests were made based on information given to authorities by two of the accused teens’ parents, with the final suspect turning herself in on Tuesday.
“The mother of one of the 15-year-old female suspects turned her daughter in to police,” the NOPD wrote in a press statement. “Later in the evening, officers located and arrested the male suspect and one of the female suspects at the location after receiving information from the male suspect’s parents. The remaining female suspect surrendered to police this morning (March 22).”
At a press conference on Tuesday, NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson commended the parents for making the undoubtedly difficult call to turn their children in.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision, on the behalf of these parents, and I want to commend them for doing the right thing,” he said.
“It’s very painful to turn in your child for something you know they were not raised to be.”
Family describe Ms Frickey as a friendly and caring woman and say she was planning on retiring in a month. She was reportedly looking forward to spending more time with her recently-retired husband and their granddaughter.
“Linda should have lived to be 100 years old, still helping everybody,” her sister-in-law, Kathy Richard, told Fox8. “She didn’t have the chance to see her son get married next year and her granddaughter was only seven years old.
“She didn’t get enough time with her. She did not deserve to go that way.”
