Suspect arrested in 2021 hit-and-run that killed Queens grandmother out Christmas shopping

The arrest of a hit-and-run driver wanted for mowing down a 79-year-old Queens grandmother while out Christmas shopping more than two years ago comes as scant relief to her still-grieving family, the victim’s son told the Daily News Friday.

“I went from planning Christmas Eve dinner with my mom that afternoon to planning her wake the next day. There’s no way we’re going to get closure on this,” said 45-year-old Pat Coni, whose mother Helena Conti was killed in the Dec.13, 2021 crash.

On Thursday, investigators charged Edward Garzon, 43, with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death for the holiday-season crash that claimed Conti’s life.

Conti was crossing Cooper Ave. near 83rd St. outside a cemetery in Glendale, Queens, as she returned to her parked car with gifts she purchased from a nearby mall for an upcoming family trip to Virginia when police said she was mowed down by a blue sedan driven by Garzon, who then sped off.

The remnants of her holiday shopping spree at the Atlas Park mall, from shattered mugs and toys to pieces of Mickey Mouse-themed presents, remained strewn across Cooper Ave. after the vehicle took off.

Conti left behind three children and a half-dozen grandkids, relatives said. She was just days away from flying south for the coming holidays when she was killed, her son Patrick Conti told the Daily News at the time.

“How someone can hit-and-run a grandma out Christmas shopping, crossing the street carrying gifts for her family, and you just leave her there?” the distraught son said. “She deserves better than that.

“We’re devastated right now, struggling to wrap our heads around this,” he said at the time.

Conti’s son charged that Garzon’s callous decision to value his freedom over Conti’s life may have resulted in her death, saying the defendant had an opportunity to do the right thing and chose to ignore it.

“Who knows maybe my mom might not have had to die, if he just pulled over,” Pat Conti said.

Instead, Garzon spent more than two years thinking he’d escaped justice while Conti’s family lived through hell, according to her son, who said the crash indirectly claimed the lives of his father and aunt, who contracted COVID while traveling to his mother’s funeral and died weeks later.

“He spent the past two and a half years, figuring that he got away with it,” said the victim’s son. “This really set off a whole chain of events that just kind of destroyed my life.”

Garzon lives in Queens, about four miles from where the fatal crash occurred. Queens prosecutors indicted him for the hit-and-run and he was taken into custody on an arrest warrant Thursday.

He was released on $10,000 bail and is due back in court on July 22, officials said.

It was not immediately disclosed how investigators zeroed in on Garzon.

Conti was well known in her Forest Hills neighborhood, walking her two poodles every morning and making frequent stops to greet locals, according to her son, who said both his parents had years of life left ahead of them that were stolen in the holiday crash.

“She had a really good life. She had her dogs. Both my parents were in incredibly good health and they had many more years of life and living ahead of them,” said Pat Conti. “It’s hard to sometimes accept that because of this one guy speeding down a side street…”

The victim’s son hopes the court takes Garzon’s long years on the lam and his family’s suffering into account as they seek a fitting punishment for the Queens grandmother’s killer.

“It’s been two and a half years and you think about everything my family had to go through, he could have just turned himself in,” said Pat Conti. “I think I can speak for my family when I say our biggest fear is seeing this plead out and the driver walks with just a slap on the wrist. That would really sting.”