Mourning Marylee

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

For four and a half days, Teri Sautter and her family could only imagine what a killer’s face might look like.
Sautter, the mother of 15-year-old hit-and-run victim Marylee Otto, pleaded for someone to identify the SUV driver who ran down her daughter in the middle of Rhawn Street on March 28, then callously sped away as if the fatally injured youngster were nothing more than a stray animal.
Sautter speculated that the driver was probably a young man who’d had a few too many drinks and fled to avoid owning up to the consequences of his drunken driving.
Consoling friends suggested to the mother that the driver might have been a woman.
"I thought a woman would be a little more compassionate," Sautter said.
On April 2, just hours after Marylee’s funeral, Sautter and her family finally saw the alleged hit-and-run driver’s face as a news reporter handed them a police mug shot. It turned out that the suspect not only was a woman, but a registered nurse, too.
Michelle Johnson, 40, of the 5900 block of Lawrence St. in Olney, had surrendered to police hours earlier. Accident investigators already had possession of her vehicle and were about to link it forensically to the crime scene.
Johnson was on her way to work at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility just after 11 that night when she allegedly ran a red light and struck Otto just east of Lexington Avenue in Pennypack Park.
Johnson never stopped to check on Otto, said Sautter, citing the accounts of her daughter’s friends who witnessed the tragedy.
"The fact that she’s a nurse, she’s supposed to help people," the mother said.
Instead, Sautter can only imagine the level of selfishness and arrogance that might have prompted Johnson to allegedly leave Marylee dying in the street. The girl’s mother thinks that the suspect’s mug shot provides a window to her soul.
"She looks like she was annoyed that she had to pose for the picture," Sautter said.
Johnson’s alleged actions after the crash appear to demonstrate her disregard. She continued to the prison, parked her damaged green Toyota Sequoia in the parking lot and went about her usual shift, police said.
Johnson is employed by Prison Health Services Inc., a contractor retained by the prison system to provide on-site health care.
After work, Johnson allegedly left the SUV in the prison parking lot and went home. She returned to work as scheduled the following night, presumably by way of alternate transportation.
On March 30, unidentified sources led police to Johnson’s vehicle. Investigators seized the SUV from the prison lot. That same day, the prison system banned Johnson from all of its facilities.
Still, more than two days passed before Johnson showed up at the 35th Police District, Broad Street and Champlost Avenue, just before midnight on April 1 and admitted she was the wanted driver, police said.
Johnson was charged with involuntary manslaughter, homicide by vehicle, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, driving with a suspended license and related offenses. She was scheduled for an April 9 preliminary hearing.
She initially was jailed in Philadelphia but later transferred out of the city to prevent possible contact with inmates she knew through her profession.
Sautter and Marylee’s siblings — brothers David, 21, Shawn, 18, and Bradley, 13, and sister Skylar, 5 — have heard nothing from Johnson or her family.
"And I don’t think I will," Sautter said. "I would feel a little bit better had she stopped (at the scene) and apologized."
By the same token, the victim’s family has only begun to comprehend the magnitude of their loss. After the crash, Marylee was taken to Frankford Hospital-Torresdale, where she died four hours later.
Sautter, a single mother, described her daughter as a popular girl who developed enduring friendships wherever the family settled in Bucks County and the Northeast.
"She was very bubbly, very caring and funny," Sautter said. "She would tell it like it is and wouldn’t hold any punches."
Marylee had a soft spot for animals and liked to rescue any she found on the street.
She was an aspiring fashion designer, too, and illustrated a bunch of her ideas in sketchbooks. A graduate of Austin Meehan Middle School, Otto was enrolled in the ninth grade at the Achievement Charter School, a public cyber school in Bryn Mawr.
"She was deciding if she wanted to go for culinary or dress-designing," Sautter said.
Otto also loved taking care of her little sister and eating popcorn.
On the night of her death, Otto was spending time with pals from the Lexington Park neighborhood where the family had lived until a few months ago. It was a weekly routine, according to Sautter. The friends would go to the Neshaminy Mall to catch a movie, then take the bus to Lexington Park where they would have a sleepover.
Four teens made the outing on March 28. The accident occurred at about 11 p.m.
"The bus dropped them off, and they were going back to their friend’s house for the night," Sautter said. "It was the Friday night thing — movies, the mall and slumber parties."
The teens called 911 and Sautter on their cell phones. Sautter drove straight to the hospital.
"I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I just flew, and that was the beginning of the nightmare," she said.
Though Sautter and her family — who currently are living in Frankford — have benefited from the endless support of relatives and friends, Sautter has found herself having to defend against accusations that her daughter was doing something wrong.
"I’m tired of people saying on (Internet) blogs that she was out too late and that she was drinking. She never drank. She never bothered anybody. She was a good kid," Sautter said.
It’s hard for the mother to imagine sometimes that her daughter is gone.
"You’re in denial. You know it’s real, but you can’t believe it sometimes," Sautter said. "She is there with you in spirit, but she’s not there. She was addicted to popcorn, so when you smell popcorn, you think, ‘Oh, she’s making another bag.’" ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com