Torrance Woman Hurt and Dog Killed in Hit-and-Run

"I miss her. I want her back."

A Torrance woman is desperate to find the hit-and-run driver who plowed into her early Monday morning near her home, leaving her injured and killing her 13-year-old rescue dog Daisy.

"I miss her. I want her back," Diane Castillo said.

Castillo was walking her two dogs Celo and Daisy Monday morning around 5:30 a.m. on Vermont Avenue near Belson Street.

She said she was standing on the sidewalk and Daisy, her miniature pinscher-dachshund mix who was on a leash, had stepped into the bike lane. A white truck sped up, passed a car, and swerved right into Castillo and her dog. Castillo blacked out and when she woke up, Daisy's body was lying nearby.

"I knew she didn't make it. If she didn't come running up, or wait right there, I knew she was gone," she said.

Castillo, a school cafeteria manager, was left with massive bruising, two cracked ribs, a fractured clavicle, and scrapes on her face.

Her other dog Cleo survived, but appears to be in mourning.

"They were like sisters," she said. "I can see it in her eyes - she does miss Daisy."

She and her mother salvaged part of the right side mirror that fell from the truck.

Aftering running the part numbers, it came back as matching a Ford F-150 truck.

Castillo believes that's the type of vehicle that hit her.

"I want someone to come forward," she said.

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