A 51-year-old man is in police custody, charged in the hit-and-run death of a mother of three outside a Washington Park bar Wednesday night.
Malcom X Conway was charged with failure to report an accident involving a death Friday and is being held in the St. Clair County Jail, pending a pretrial release hearing, according to St. Clair County Circuit Court records.
In the meantime, the family of Latasha Johnson, 46, is grieving the loss and hoping the person responsible for her death is punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Johnson had just left a bar in the 3800 block of St. Clair Avenue at about 9:40 p.m. and was walking toward her car when she was struck by Conway's 2009 Chevy Tahoe, police said. Conway left the scene without reporting the accident, according to charging documents.
Johnson's mother, Carrie Clay, said her daughter was an excellent mother who always kept her children engaged in doing positive things. The children are ages 14, 11 and 7.
"How do you process something that you never thought would happen? Two years ago their dad passed away. Now their mom is gone," Clay said. "That driver has ripped their hearts out."
Johnson was a certified nursing assistant who worked at BRIA of Cahokia, a nursing home in the 300 block of Jerome Lane in Cahokia Heights. Friday afternoon, family, friends and coworkers gathered to pray and have a balloon release to celebrate her life.
"Tasha loved everybody, always made them laugh, and she loved all of y'all," Shell Washington, Johnson's sister, said during the memorial. "I won't say I love you all from the bottom of my heart, because my love for you is at the top."
X'Lexus Johnson says the family is left with a huge void because of her cousin's sudden death.
The tragic news came to her from her best friend.
"Someone was at the club and saw it and called me and said Tasha had been hit," X'Lexus Johnson said. "I didn't think it was her body that had been hit. I thought the car got hit. The whole time it was her who got hit. She was leaving the bar going to her truck."
Clay, Johnson's mother, learned from family members.
"Everybody called her. Family contacted her and told her where we needed her to be," said X'Lexus Johnson. "All of us got to the hospital. When we got there they explained to us she was already gone when she got there."
Johnson said the two of them were very close. They were living next door to each other and saw each other nearly every day. The closeness between the two has existed for many years.
"She was very funny, very open, not judgmental, very helpful, caring, loved her elders," X'Lexus Johnson said. "That's why she chose the career of being a patient caregiver. She is a certified nursing assistant. She's been doing this since 1999. She would give the shirt off her back. She was that type of person. She loved to party. She loved family gatherings, she loved to cook, she loved to be around family. She loved to be around people who are lovable."
In addition to her three children, Natasha Johnson is survived by three brothers and two sisters, including siblings on her father's side.
"She was my only daughter and oldest child," said Clay. "I am going to miss her so much."
Prior to Conway's arrest, Clay told the Belleville News-Democrat she wants the person responsible caught brought to justice with the maximum penalty the law will allow.
"Basically you drug her until she let herself loose from the car. You even started hiding your car. You knew what you did was wrong," Clay said.
"She was born into this family, and her life was taken from us way too soon. We will celebrate her. We will talk about her and bring memories up because that's all we are left with."