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Police Searching For Driver Involved In Fatal Hit-And-Run

BLOOMFIELD (KDKA) – Family and friends of an aspiring, local artist are pleading for the public's help.

They're trying to find the driver who struck the young woman, then took off, leaving her to die.

The young woman's boyfriend told KDKA-TV's Amy Wadas that 26-year-old Jessica McChesney got hit by a car after she left a party in Bloomfield. Police are looking for that driver, and family and friends are asking for that driver to come forward.

J.T. Seelman says he fell in love with McChesney, a talented artist, the moment he met her.

"She would impact your life right away," he said. "I know she did with mine as soon as I met her."

McChesney recently moved to Pittsburgh from Erie in March for a job at Bechtel Plant Machinery in Monroeville. That's where she met Seelman. They started dating not long after that and had recently talked about moving to Boston.

"We felt we were right for each other, and we just had a plan on what we were gonna do," Seelman said. "Later this year, she was gonna start looking to potentially move up there, and we were gonna go from there."

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But Sunday, around 2:30 a.m., their plans quickly changed. McChesney was hit by a car at the corner of Baum Boulevard and Morewood Avenue in Bloomfield. Police don't have a description of the car that hit her, only that it took off toward downtown.

"She was walking away [from the party] just to maybe clear her head," he said. "Nothing really happened at the party that would set her off."

Seelman said he spent hours looking for her. He said she left her cell phone behind.

Eventually, he called police and was told she was at UPMC Presbyterian, where she was pronounced dead just after 7 p.m. Sunday.

"If anybody knows information about who hit her, I just ask you do the right thing and come forward," Seelman said. "There's a lot of people grieving and looking for answers."

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family with funeral expenses. McChesney's funeral is scheduled for Friday in Union City which is near Erie.

Anyone with any information about this accident is asked to call Pittsburgh Police.

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