The woman who hit a man along Schrock Road and left him there to die was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison last Friday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

Sara J. Small, 24, of the Far North Side, was sentenced by Judge David Cain after she declined to defend herself or express remorse when given the opportunity to speak at the sentencing.

Small, the single mother of a 5-year-old boy, pleaded guilty to felony counts of vehicular homicide, failure to stop after an accident and tampering with evidence on Sept. 29.

She admitted she was text messaging at the time of the incident and had been drinking earlier in the evening before she struck Domingo Aparicio, 28, as he walked along Schrock Road at approximately 3:30 a.m. on July 28, 2008.

She did not stop, telling Worthington police later that she knew she "hit something" but thought a rock had struck her windshield.

Aparicio was found along the side of the road at 5:20 a.m. A passerby reported seeing a man bleeding on the side of Schrock, just east of Huntley Road.

Paramedics transported the man to University Hospital where he underwent surgery and died two days later.

Worthington police said he might have survived had Small called for help.

"If she wanted to continue, she could have at least called 911," Sgt. John Slaughter said.

Aparicio, who was from Mexico, lived at 7739 Flint Valley Court, off Sancus Boulevard near Whitewater. He was the father of an 8-year-old boy.

On the night of the incident, he had been at a private party at a party house on Morse Road. He had called a friend for a ride home, but the friend could not find him. According to police records, it was not unusual for Aparicio to walk home.

Police investigated the incident as a hit-skip, and put out information to the media that they were looking for a silver colored car with damage to the front end.

On Aug. 30, an attorney representing Small called Worthington police, reporting that his client may have been involved in the accident.

During an interview at police headquarters that evening, Small told police that she left the Eight Ball around 2:30 a.m., dropped off a friend in the Karl/Schrock road area, and was driving down Schrock when her phone rang. When she picked it up, she heard a noise and thought a rock hit her windshield and she kept going.

She then drove to the Waffle House on Polaris Parkway to meet a friend. She admitted that she had since vacuumed bits of glass from the interior of her car.

Police impounded her silver Honda. The driver's side window had been smashed, the inner molding around the door had been torn off, and the side mirror had been partially torn off.

Lt. Mike Dougherty said he believes she knew she hit a person, that she probably stopped and saw the man bleeding and took off, meeting a friend at Waffle House to discuss what had happened.

That is the part that makes him angry, he said. Had Aparicio been taken to the hospital sooner, his brain might not have had time to swell so much, and he might have survived.

"How do you let someone lay there and die like a dog in the road," he said.

He testified that Small never showed any remorse during her interviews with police, and Cain saw the same demeanor in court, he said.

"She never apologized for what she did," Dougherty said.

Cain also ordered that Small pay $4,638 for the cost of Aparicio's funeral and transporting his body back to Mexico.