EAST VILLAGE — A woman was killed when a newspaper deliveryman on his way home from work slammed into her with his SUV as she walked near Cooper Square early Thursday morning, police and the driver said.
Lisa Julian, 47, was crossing east over Third Avenue at St. Marks Place when a southbound white Ford Explorer hit her about 6:28 a.m., the NYPD and driver said.
The distraught driver, Oliver Parris, 58, said he had the green light when he saw Julian crossing in front of him.
"I was trying to swerve from her, but I couldn't do it in time," he said.
Parris pulled over and was joined by a Good Samaritan, Parris said.
"A doctor stopped on the scene and he came and took her pulse. He said she had a pulse," the driver said.
Julian, who lived on East 7th Street near Avenue D, was taken to Beth Israel and pronounced dead, an NYPD spokeswoman said.
Parris was not immediately charged, the NYPD said.
"I'm really sorry for her. I'm fine. I'm still in one piece. It's her. It's her I'm thinking of. I pray," Parris said.
Julian, who friends called Spike, was known around the neighborhood as "easy-going" with a punk rock flare.
"She used to wear spiky things and punk-rock stuff, spikes in her nose, spikes in her boots, spikes in her hair," her neighbor David Sosa said. "I would go to Tompkins Square Park and would see her around the music. She would roll on the floor and jump up and down."
Police were still investigating.
