A 90-year-old Villager is scheduled to face trial this fall in a hit-and-run case which injured husband-and-wife bicyclists.
Marilyn Hamilton of the Village of Fernandina is scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 10, about two weeks prior to her 91st birthday and nearly two years after injuring the cyclists in a case that shocked The Villages’ bicycling community.
Hamilton has pleaded not guilty to felony counts of hit and run. She is charged with hitting Village of Dunedin residents Jessica Laube and Robert Hunter, who had been riding on Morse Boulevard on Oct. 30, 2020. They were both struck by a white Mercedes driven by Hamilton. She allegedly stopped, looked at the crumpled bicyclists on the ground, got back in her car and fled the scene. She had her damaged 2014 Mercedes towed to a dealership in Gainesville, leading to her arrest on Nov. 5, 2020 at her home on Twisted Oak Way.
Laube, an experienced cyclist who is a member of the Sumter Landing Bike Club, was airlifted to Ocala Regional Medical Center where she remained in the intensive care unit for 30 days. She suffered 17 broken ribs, a collapsed lung, paralyzed vocal chord, broken am, broken wrist, torn finger tendons and ligaments and brain injuries. Hunter was also injured, but his wife, who was following him, suffered the greatest impact from the Mercedes.
Hamilton remains free on bond. A judge has suspended her driving privileges.
