Mother looks for answers after son becomes 2nd pedestrian fatally struck by same driver in 3 months

LAUREL, Md. - A Maryland mother wants to know why a driver who struck and killed her son is not being charged despite it being the second time in three months he has fatally hit a pedestrian.

Both of the fatal accidents happened along Route 1 in Laurel.

In the most recent incident on Dec. 27, 23-year-old Jonathan Swinton was walking home after hanging out with friends a little after 4 a.m. Brian Esser, a 55-year-old bread delivery truck driver, was driving a box truck northbound on Route 1 north of Route 200 when he hit Swinton.

Police say Swinton was walking in the roadway and not in a crosswalk at the time of the collision.

But his mother, Georgia, is wondering whether this tragedy could have been avoided.

"Does this man need his eyes checked? What else has to be done?" asked Georgia Swinton. "It can't just be like, 'Oh, he killed two people and that's just the end of it.' It's not fair."

Swinton's mother said the driver who hit her son has not reached out to her family.

"You hit somebody. You killed somebody's family member. The human thing you should have done - pick up the phone, call, try to find the family, apologize," she said.

Georgia Swinton said her son had dreams of becoming an engineer. In the meantime, he was attending community college and working at a nearby hotel.

The other fatal accident involving Esser happened back in September when a young woman was killed.

When FOX 5 News spoke with police about these cases, they reiterated that when pedestrians are not walking in the crosswalk, they are not following the law.