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A woman admitted to running over a 19-year-old woman on purpose after she mistook the younger woman for her husband's mistress, police say. The identify of the driver has not been revealed, but she has been described as a woman in her late 30s. Police say the woman intentionally hit the 19-year-old victim on Wednesday afternoon as the teen was walking near Jones and Robinson Avenues in Riverside, KTLA reports. She was taken to a hospital and for non-life threatening injuries. The driver was also taken to the hospital, but for an unrelated illness.
The older woman admitted to investigators that she ran into the woman on the purpose, "thinking it was a woman who might have had some type of relationship with her husband," Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback said. However, the woman was wrong: the victim did not know the husband. Railsback called it a case of "mistaken identity."
The woman's son, who chose to remain anonymous, said that his mother had been suffering from mental illness and apologized to the victim's family. "They don't know who we are. I don't know who they are," he said.
The woman's husband and son both indicated that this action was out of character for her.
