Hit-and-run driver sentenced to 3-6 years in prison for fatally running over his fiancee in Reading
A former Shillington man who fatally ran over his fiancee on Penn Square during an argument in 2021 and fled has been sentenced to a state prison.
Joseph Alley, 49, most recently of Arizona, was sentenced Thursday by Berks County Judge Thomas G. Parisi to three to six years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $10,145 in restitution to the victim’s mother.
Alley was found guilty by a jury in April of accidents involving death or personal injury, failing to provide immediate notice of accident to police, careless driving leading to unintentional death and related counts.
According to investigators:
Alley was in an argument with his fiancee, 24-year-old Mikerrah Page of Reading, on Jan. 8, 2021.
Witnesses saw Page running east in the 400 block of Penn Street shortly before 9:30 p.m., apparently chasing a vehicle. The vehicle stopped in the left-turn lane at Fifth Street, and Page caught up to it.
Page was seen hitting the window of the vehicle with her hands, and the vehicle accelerated quickly and turned left onto North Fifth Street.
Witnesses said Page could be seen hanging onto the vehicle for a moment before falling off and onto the street. The vehicle continued north, turning east onto the 500 block of Court Street.
A short time after the incident, Alley arrived at Reading Hospital. Police questioned him and he said he had been driving with Page when the two got into a fight.
He said he stopped the vehicle on the south side of Penn Street, and Page got out. He said he drove away, leaving her there.
However, video footage from the incident showed Page had reached Alley’s vehicle and that Alley’s vehicle ran over Page after she had fallen onto the road. She died in Reading Hospital 11 days later.
An autopsy showed her cause of death to be a skull fracture suffered when she was run over.
