Community Corner
Plea Expected Wednesday for Man Charged in Queen Street Hit-And-Run Death
The charges are set and Southington police have closed a case against a Plainville man charged with killing one woman and seriously injuring two others after striking them with his truck in February.
A Plainville man charged with causing the death of 23-year-old Yan Qiao “Joanne” Chen and severely injuring two others during a February hit-and-run accident on Queen Street in February could enter a plea Wednesday when he appears before a judge in Bristol Superior Court.
Detectives have now officially closed their case against 46-year-old Edward Fascendini, the man charged in early May in connection with the Feb. 12 accident, Southington police reported Tuesday.
Fascendini was arraigned on May 9 on charges of misconduct with a motor vehicle and three counts of evading responsibility in an accident that caused injury or death. He remains in state custody after pleading guilty to an unrelated charge, according to court records.
“(Police) were able to forensically link Fascendini’s vehicle to this accident,” Southington Police Sgt. Jeffrey Dobratz said on May 3. “Additional information was also obtained through an informational checkpoint that was conducted by the Southington Police Department the night after the accident.”
The Feb. 12 accident, which occurred just days after a blizzard left high snow banks along the road, left Hong “Rita” Yang and Liu “Emily” Huai, both 23 seriously injured, as well as killing 23-year-old Yan Qiao “Joanne” Chen.
Yang and Huai have since been released from the hospital but are continuing to recover from their injuries, police said Friday.
According to a police report, the three women were walking south along Queen Street after leaving their jobs at Gobi Mongolian Grill when Fascendini allegedly struck them with his white Dodge pickup truck. He proceeded to flee the scene, police said, heading north along Queen Street and leaving the women lying in the roadway.
Fascendini, formerly of 66 Whiting St. in Plainville, has had trouble with the law in recent years, court records showed on Tuesday.
He has faced convictions in six cases from Plainville and Bristol between 2004 and 2011, including for charges of fourth-degree larceny, possession of narcotics with the intent to dispense, sale of narcotics, second-degree harassment, sixth-degree larceny, use of a motor vehicle without permission and third-degree assault, according to court records.
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