Woman gets up to 6 years for hit-and-run crash that killed North Hills man

A Ross woman was sentenced Wednesday to three to six years in prison for fleeing a fatal car crash that killed a North Hills man crossing the street the week before Christmas in 2017, prosecutors said.

Melinda Gregor, 30, was convicted last year for striking a pedestrian, Michael Menner, with her Subaru as he was walking across Babcock Boulevard just east of McKnight Road/Route 19, then driving away before emergency responders arrived.

Medics rushed Menner to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, where he died a short time later.

An autopsy found that Menner’s primary cause of death was a head trauma from hitting both the car and the ground, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said. The examiner ruled the death as accidental.

A jury deliberated for less than a day in late April before finding Gregor guilty of leaving the scene and failing to give aid in a vehicle crash involving an injury.

Judge Beth Lazzara imposed Gregor’s prison sentence during a hearing Wednesday at the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh, district attorney’s spokesman Mike Manko said.

Caught getting takeout post-crash

The man killed in the hit-and-run crash, Michael J. Menner, was a father of three and an attorney for a Canonsburg law firm for more than 20 years. He graduated from University of Dayton in 1990 and Duquesne Law School in 1996 before becoming a practicing partner for Akman and Associates.

He was survived by two daughters and a son, a grandson, his father and three siblings, his family wrote in his obituary.

Shortly before 7 p.m. on Dec. 17, 2017, Menner parked his car at the Philly Pretzel Factory to pick up his son from work, according to Menner’s family. His son told him he wasn’t ready to close up yet, so Menner decided to walk over to Shenanigans Bar & Grille to watch the Steelers game.

Witnesses told police they saw a white car crash into Menner, throwing him into the air, the complaint said. The driver, later identified as Gregor, then drove off to a nearby parking lot.

Video surveillance showed that soon after the crash, Gregor pulled her white Subaru into an Italian restaurant on Babcock Boulevard near Thompson Run Road, where employees confirmed that she picked up a to-go food order with her young daughter.

Police recovered pieces of Gregor’s car at the crash site and captured her in the vehicle on video surveillance.

Officials later served a search warrant on the car and observed damage consistent with the crash, including a broken windshield that had rendered the vehicle unsafe to drive, the complaint said.

Gregor also was convicted of careless driving, driving at an unsafe speed and driving without a license.

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Correction: This story has been updated to correctly identify the driver of the vehicle.