Man sentenced for hit-and-run crash that killed Foster Farms employee in Reedley

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- A family remembered their loved one as the man charged with a deadly hit-and-run learned his prison sentence on Wednesday.

Melecio Ayala-Hernandez will spend three years in prison for a hit-and-run that killed Jose Aguilera.

The victim was 25 and a father of two. His family was overcome with emotion in court.

"I could always count on my brother. He was always there for me. He was one of the most important people in my life. He was my best friend, not just my brother," said Maria Najera, Aguilera's brother.

"You took a father from his children. You took a sibling and an uncle from my kids. You broke us."

Prosecutors say Ayala-Hernandez was behind the wheel of a stolen truck when he plowed into Aguilera and left.

It happened where both men worked at Foster Farms in Reedley last August.

Although Aguilera died, prosecutors didn't charge Ayala-Hernandez with homicide.

Instead, he pleaded no contest to having a stolen truck and leaving the scene.

But his attorney, Taylor Pittman, says Ayala-Hernandez left to find help on the freeway.

"This officer is stopped for something completely unrelated, helping somebody else on the freeway. And Mr. Ayala-Hernandez stops and says, 'I have to tell you what happened. I hit somebody,'" said Pittman.

It's unclear exactly what happened because the case never went to trial.

The judge called the facts, quote, "strange," and raised his own questions.

"The circumstances surrounding the incident here led me to believe there may have been other things going on," said the judge.

Through it all, Ayala-Hernandez sat quietly in court.

A translator interpreted the proceeding for him, even as the victim's family members delivered harsh words.

"Do you know that you are more than a killer? You are also a thief. You stole my brother's life," Najera told Ayala-Hernandez.

Ayala-Hernandez already has credit for more than half of his three-year sentence.

He'll now serve the rest of it at a state prison.

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