A Queens mother had just stepped out of a Social Security office — where she and her husband were applying to get out of a shelter and into their own apartment — to grab a coffee when she was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver, her daughter said.
Suzanne Schmieder, 58, had just arrived at the Social Security Administration building in Jamaica about 3:00 p.m. Wednesday when she told her husband she was going to grab a coffee nearby.
“When she crossed the street to get the coffee, that’s when it happened,” said Sydney Schmieder, the victim’s only child. “My dad went upstairs and he didn’t see it.”
Suzanne was crossing Jamaica Ave. when a driver in a dark-colored sedan headed west on Jamaica Ave. struck her and sped off, cops said. The driver has not been caught.
“It’s disgusting,” Sydney said of the driver. “I hope that their day will come and that justice will be served. I do believe in karma and I think that they will get their karma.”
The daughter said she and her father hope Suzanne felt no pain.
“They said she was showing no signs of life and they tried to resuscitate her,” she said. “When they got to the hospital she was brought into trauma (unit) and they couldn’t do anything so she was pronounced dead.”
Suzanne and her husband had been living in a Queens shelter for two months after being evicted from their apartment. They were in the process of trying to get a rental voucher from Social Security, their daughter said.
Sydney spoke to her mother on the phone just two hours before the crash.
“She sounded great. She sounded so good,” the daughter said, getting choked up. “We’ve had times where I’ve spoken to her and we would fight a lot. So for that to be the last conversation, I’m just really grateful, because it was a really good one.”
Suzanne was from Rosedale and lived in Queens her whole life. She was an animal lover and was mourning the recent death of her Yorkshire Terrier named Noodles.
Suzanne picked up different jobs through the years, working in a pet store at one point and serving at Lenny’s Clam Bar in Howard Beach for several years.
When Sydney later did her own stint as a server, her mother showed her all the tricks.
“She was great at [serving],” Sydney said. “She would help me. She’d be like, ‘Okay this is what you have to do,’ and she would tell me how to write things down and practice with me when I was learning how to do it.”
The daughter said her mother loved her “very deeply” and did “everything she could for me.”
Unable to afford a proper burial, the victim’s husband and daughter have created a GoFundMe to help pay for services.
“She was a good person. She had her troubles in life,” Sydney said. “She was tough. She didn’t take no BS. She would fight so hard for anyone she cared for.”
“I just hope she’s at peace,” she added.