A Mattapan woman remains held on high bail today after her Superior Court arraignment on charges that she ran down a 6-year-old boy in April, nearly killing him, before fleeing the scene and telling friends to lie on her behalf, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

SHANIQUA NELSON (D.O.B. 3/12/92) was indicted July 12 by the Suffolk County Grand Jury, moving her case from district court to Suffolk Superior Court, where it will be adjudicated. Nelson was indicted on charges of leaving the scene of an accident causing personal injury, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, and violating the state’s witness intimidation law, all in connection with the April 18 incident on Delhi Street.

Clerk Magistrate Gary D. Wilson ordered that Nelson continue to be held on the $15,000 cash bail imposed at her July 6 arraignment in Dorchester District Court.

In court today, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Devlin told the court that on the evening of the date of the incident, Nelson borrowed her boyfriend’s red 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse. At 6:42 that evening, Devlin said, Nelson was “operating at excessive speed” when she struck the boy on the residential street.
“The boy was attempting to cross the street to play with other children,” Devlin told the court. “The child had looked both ways before crossing the street, and was struck by the car operated by Ms. Nelson.”
“The child was hit with such force that he flipped over the hood and into the air,” Devlin said.

A neighbor who witnessed the incident ran after the car and yelled at the operator to stop, to no avail. That witness “identified the car to police as an older Mitsubishi Eclipse with a red exterior and a tan top,” Devlin told the court. Nearby surveillance video on Delhi Street confirmed the witness’s statement of the make and model of the car, the prosecutor said.

Devlin said the child was “unconscious and not breathing,” and was transported to Boston Medical Center with severe head trauma. “The child was in a medically-induced coma for four days and was in the hospital for two weeks,” Devlin said. “The child’s long term prognosis for his head injuries is still unclear.”

Approximately 18 minutes later, Devlin told the court, Nelson returned the car keys to her boyfriend’s relative. She also “phoned a friend, hysterically crying, and stated that she had hit a child and wondered if he was dead,” Devlin said.

At about 7:00 the next morning, the defendant’s boyfriend called 911 to report that he had heard his car make and model being described on the morning news, the prosecutor said. After watching the news, the boyfriend called Nelson; she allegedly told him that “something happened” but wouldn’t tell him what it was. Nelson’s boyfriend repeated this information during the 911 call to police, Devlin said.

Boston Police officers responded to the man’s house and took custody of the car. During the course of the grand jury investigation, Devlin said, Nelson “contacted a witness and provided her with a story to tell investigators about the night of the incident.”

Armed with multiple witness statements, video surveillance footage, and other evidence gathered during the course of the investigation, Boston Police detectives began actively searching for Nelson, who eluded investigators until July 6.

At the time of the April collision, Nelson was free on bail in an unrelated March case also charged in Dorchester court. In that incident, Nelson was allegedly driving erratically and operating her mother’s 2002 Hyundai Elantra with a suspended driver’s license when she collided with three parked cars on Armandine Street shortly after 5:30 p.m. on March 23. Nelson allegedly drove away from the scene of those collisions and, when confronted by police, allegedly refused to exit the car. When the officers tried to pry her fingers from the steering wheel, she allegedly struck them repeatedly before being taken into custody. At her arraignment the next day, the presiding judge ordered her not to drive.

Nelson is represented by attorney Robert Sheketoff. She will return to court on September 8.