Hit-Run Driver Who Tried To Flee Country After Killing Child In Elkton Learns Prison Fate

By Zak Failla From Daily Voice

The man who hit and killed 11-year-old Mesiah Lafayette on a Maryland roadway before trying to flee the country has been sentenced to prison, prosecutors announced.

Nestor La Guillen Parra, 31, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to failing to remain at the scene of an accident which resulted in death, the Cecil County State’s Attorney’s Office said.

The maximum penalty was 10 years.  Maryland’s sentencing guidelines called for three months to four years, but the judge exceeded that, prosecutors noted.

The deadly hit-and-run happened just before 9 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, at the intersection of Elkton/Newark Road and Belle Hill Road, police said.

Lafayette was riding his bike in a crosswalk when he was hit by a driver who had a green light, investigators said. The driver fled the scene, and the child later died at Christiana Hospital in Delaware.

Mesiah Lafayette

GoFundMe

Descriptions of the car were limited, but days later, Elkton police found it covered with a tarp on Booth Street. The windshield was damaged. Investigators identified Parra as the driver.

He was arrested in Wilmington, Delaware, on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, with a bus ticket to Atlanta. 

Prosecutors said investigators believed he intended to flee to Mexico after reaching Georgia.

“Parra’s act of fleeing the scene after striking the child resulted in his incarceration,” the State’s Attorney’s Office said.

Parra is being held without bond at the Cecil County Detention Center.

A GoFundMe to "honor Mesiah Lafayette's memory" can be found here.

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