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Two women pedestrians killed in hit-run crash mourned

Vancouver police seek driver of white pickup

By Emily Gillespie, Columbian Breaking News Reporter, and
Patty Hastings, Columbian Social Services, Demographics, Faith
Published: January 20, 2014, 4:00pm

Families support each other in grief for friends.

Carrying flowers and speaking softly, a crowd gathered Monday to mourn the two Vancouver women killed Sunday night in a hit-and-run crash in the Westfield Vancouver mall area.

The women’s loved ones placed bouquets along the roadway where Irina Gardinant, 28, and Raisa Mosh, 45, were struck as they walked across Northeast Vancouver Mall Drive at Northeast 72nd Avenue. Mosh, a mother of four, died at the scene. Gardinant, a Sunday school teacher with a 2-year-old daughter, died after being rushed to a hospital. Mosh’s 12-year-old son was injured in the collision, treated at a hospital and released.

“I’ve been crying, crying, crying all night,” Mosh’s neighbor, Antonia Kotikova, said. “It’s very hard.”

According to police, Mosh and Gardinant were hit shortly after 8 p.m. Sunday by a southbound white pickup taking a quick left turn from Northeast 72nd Avenue onto Northeast Vancouver Mall Drive. The two women were in the crosswalk. The driver of the pickup fled the scene and remains at large.

Investigators are looking for the pickup, which they say is similar to a Toyota Tacoma made between 2005 and 2009. The vehicle is likely damaged and is missing parts of its grille. Additionally, Vancouver Police Department spokeswoman Kim Kapp said police are looking for a full-size black pickup that went through the intersection shortly after the crash, but left the scene.

“It’s possible that (the black pickup) may have hit somebody as well. We don’t know,” Kapp said. “We don’t have any witnesses that say the black truck hit anyone, but we don’t know for sure.”

Anyone with information about the incident is encouraged to call 911 or the Vancouver Police Department at 360-487-7402. The case is being investigated by the agency’s traffic unit.

Initial reports that there was a fourth pedestrian in the group were inaccurate, Kapp said.

“We initially thought there was four (in the group),” she said. After the crash, “a lot of people came on the scene … it was pretty chaotic.”

Friends, churchgoers

As mourners gathered on Monday to remember Mosh and Gardinant, they shared stories of the two women.

Both immigrants from Moldova, the women met at a church in their native country, their friend Mark Zizokian said. He said the women were heading home from a baby shower on Sunday night when the hit-and-run claimed their lives. Zizokian pointed out the markings and words spray-painted by investigators on the pavement, noting the spaces where a fallen purse, shoe and jacket had lain.

The mourners’ hushed conversations were interrupted by the sounds of cars driving by and children playing at a nearby apartment playground.

Gardinant and Mosh were active members of First Slavic Baptist Church Emmanuel in east Vancouver, according to the church’s choir director, Petr Zavo-

torniy.

“It’s a real tragedy for us,” Zavotorniy said. He described both women as very good people.

Mosh and three of her four children were part of the choir, including her son who was injured in the crash.

Brandy Wiederhold, who lives in the VanMall neighborhood, watched the group of mourners Monday from a bus stop across the street. Each day she walks across the intersection to get to school, and she said she’s had several near misses while crossing the road.

“I knew it was going to happen sooner or later,” she said. “I feel bad for the people who died.”

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Columbian Breaking News Reporter
Columbian Social Services, Demographics, Faith