Teen killed at same spot as friend

updated 10:13 a.m. ET March 26, 2007

WEST WARWICK, R.I. - A teenager was killed by a hit-and-run driver at the same spot where his 14-year-old friend had died in a car crash just hours earlier.

Andrew Coit, 18, was hit by a car after 4 a.m. Saturday as he played a guitar at a makeshift memorial to Darien Plass, 14, on West Warwick’s Main Street. Plass died after driving his mother’s minivan into a utility pole late Friday, friends of both teenagers told the Providence Journal.

“He wanted to play one last song for (Plass), and that was the last time anyone saw him. He loved singing. He died doing what he loved doing,” said Coit’s friend, Dennis Sullivan.

Plass’ friends said he had been drinking and took his mother’s minivan without her knowledge. Coit and other friends set up the memorial.

Sullivan told the newspaper the mourners remained at the memorial until about 4 a.m., but Coit stayed behind to play one more song for Plass by himself.

Minutes later, police received a call of a man down, and an ambulance crew found Coit on the sidewalk. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

“He died pretty much instantly. He did not suffer,” Alan Coit said of his son.
Police were searching for the hit-and-run driver who hit Coit, said Detective Sgt. James Tiernan.

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