Woman Arrested In Hit-And-Run Death Of Indian Student In Connecticut

A 41-year-old woman has been arrested in the hit-and-run death of an Indian student in Connecticut last year.

Jill Augelli was arrested on November 18 in the October 2023 death of Priyanshu Agwal 23, an international student at the University of New Haven.

She has been charged with one count of evading responsibility resulting in death, according to a report in the Hartford Courant.

Agwal was just a few months shy of finishing graduate school and was applying for jobs when the hit-and-run incident took his life, the report added.

The New Haven Police Department announced the arrest of the driver allegedly involved in the incident during a news conference on Monday.

At the news conference, Agwal’s brother, Aman, spoke about how he missed him every day for the past year since the accident.

“I just want to say I miss my brother every day,” he said. The report quoted him as saying that he still has dreams about his brother. He said he teeters between having good memories of his sibling and feeling guilty.

Aman said the driver did not stop after the crash. “I feel like she didn’t try to stop and it led to a major injury,” he said.

The Courant report quoted New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker as saying that Priyanshu Agwal’s family described him as a person with a “big smile” whose “outgoing, charismatic personality” led to him having lots of friends.

He was “loved by many” and had “his whole life ahead of him”, Elicker said, adding that he was applying for jobs at the time of his death and had “big dreams” of a life in the United States.

Elicker added that “thanks to Priyanshu Agwal and his family deciding to donate his heart,” he was able to save someone else’s life.

“And so that heart is beating in someone else’s body now,” Elicker said. “So even though he lost his life, part of his life is giving someone else a life today and that we’re grateful for as well.” New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson said authorities at the time did not have enough evidence to charge Augelli and “had to work to put her behind the driver’s seat during the crash”.

This involved obtaining GPS data from her cell phone carrier that allegedly showed she was “in the vicinity” of the collision when it happened, police said, according to the Courant report. Forensic testing also allegedly showed Agwal’s DNA was on Augelli’s car.

According to police, Agwal was driving an electric scooter on October 18, 2023, around 11 pm when he entered an intersection and was hit by a motorist. The driver did not stop and instead continued, the report said.

Agwal was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital where he was pronounced dead about a week later.

Investigators found the car involved in the crash the next day in Naugatuck. According to police, investigators found that Augelli was the registered owner of the vehicle, the report said.

Augelli remains held on a USD 100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in New Haven Superior Court on Tuesday.

According to the University of New Haven, Priyanshu Agwal, 23, was pursuing a master’s degree in business analytics after coming to the US in 2022 from Deoli, Rajasthan. He had served as a business analyst intern with an IT company.

Elicker said he hopes Priyanshu Agwal’s story can help underline the importance of safe driving and the critical need to stop and help when crashes happen. “If you flee we will track you down and hold you accountable,” Elicker said in the report.