North Carolina inmate confesses to fatal 1989 hit-and-run while he was on prison work release

Just four days after Christmas in 1989, 52-year-old mother Ruth Buchanan was crossing a street in Charlotte, North Carolina, after leaving a department store with a friend when she was hit by a driver who sped through a red light. 

"Her body landed on the opposite side of the intersection and that vehicle, according to witnesses, didn’t stop, didn’t render aid and continued to flee the scene," Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Sgt. Gavin Jackson of the Major Crash Unit said in a video released by police Friday.