Police make arrest in Union City hit-and-run

Union City Police have arrested a man in connection with a hit and run that left a teacher dead.

Officers arrested 20-year-old Jamonta Leon Smith, who is facing vehicular homicide, failure to render aid and leaving the scene of an accident charges.  Officers believe he was the driver that hit 29-year-old Latara Worthy around 2:45 a.m. Sunday on South Fulton Parkway near Mason Road, reported Channel 2's Tom Jones.

Police said for some reason, someone let Worthy, a Woodland Middle School teacher, out of a car and she was walking in the road.  She was hit a short distance away from her home. Her family said she was out with colleagues celebrating her upcoming 30th birthday.

Officers said Smith turned himself in Monday afternoon and told them he was returning home and crested a hill on South Fulton Parkway just before 3 a.m. Sunday morning.  He said that's when he hit something in the middle of the road.

Smith told police he got out and checked and didn't see anything so he continued home, police told Jones.

Then he saw media reports about the deadly crash.  Worthy's family took to the airwaves and pleaded for the person who hit the mother of a 1-year-old girl to turn himself in. 

"It would mean so much to my family for the individual who committed this horrific crime to come forward and to come forward now," Wilhelminia Shanks, the victim's aunt, said to television cameras.

Police said Smith did just that.  They said he is cooperating with the investigation.