‘WHAT A TRAGIC CODA’

Woman Accused of Throwing a Dog to Its Death Is Mowed Down in Hit-and-Run

Police are still searching for the driver who struck Wakeen Best, who was accused of throwing a dog from the seventh floor of a parking garage in 2018.

A California woman who gained notoriety in 2018 after she was convicted of tossing a Chihuahua from the seventh floor of a parking garage has been struck and killed in a hit-and-run, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Wakeen Best, who was convicted of animal cruelty in the dog’s death only to later see a state appeals court overturn her conviction, was hit late last month while crossing an intersection in Sacramento County, authorities said. “She had a very tough life. What a tragic coda,” public defender Alexandra Pray, who represented Best in the trial, told the Chronicle. No further information on the hit-and-run has been released, and police have not said if they believe it could have been connected to the animal-cruelty case. Best made headlines in San Francisco in February 2018 when police said she took a Chihuahua out of a vehicle in a parking garage and tossed it to its death. Her conviction in the case was later thrown out when the appeals court found she had unfairly been denied permission to represent herself in court.