WINDHAM, N.H. (AP) – Twenty years ago, popular seventh-grader Michele Iannacchino’s friends watched in horror as she was mowed down by a speeding car.

The car never stopped on Route 28 that night, on Jan. 18. No one was ever charged.

Police Detective Wendy Foley has spent the last several months re-interviewing witnesses. “What we’d like to do is finally get some closure for her mother, sister and father,” Foley said. “We’d like to get in touch with people who didn’t want to come forward 20 years ago. I think, clearly, the person who hit her was scared. There was a lot of media attention about this case at the time. I truly believe somebody knows who did this.”

A new analysis by a State Police accident reconstruction specialist concluded this year the car was traveling between 55 mph and 60 mph when it hit the 13-year-old girl. The driver never tried to stop or slow down prior to striking Iannacchino, who died instantly. Two people were believed to have been in the car. An in-depth study by accident reconstructionists is scheduled for later this year.

“We realize that it was an accident,” said Michele’s mother, Candy Wetherbee. “But the running away and never owning up to it, it’s been very hard for me to understand how somebody could do that.”

Amy Hillard, 33, still remembers that night. She was out with Iannacchino and two friends had left their Salem neighborhood and walked into Windham to Sandy’s Bowling Alley. Then they headed home. Ritchie Cimics and Hillard cleared the path of slow-moving northbound traffic on Route 28, with Michele trailing behind. At the end of the group, Larry “Chip” Alexander had just stepped onto the road when a set of headlights came racing north.

Hillard, then 12, scooted to the shoulder in time to turn around and see Michele walking toward her. “When I got to the middle line, I realized the car was going very fast,” Hillard said. “I watched her the whole time. I saw her face hit by the headlights, then she went under the lights.”

The blue car slowed after it hit Michele. It entered the bowling alley’s front parking lot, then exited the other side, speeding north and disappearing, police said. Michele’s body was found about 100 feet from the point of impact.

Chips of metallic blue paint and bits of a front headlight are among the scant evidence recovered, and police never got a firm description of the make and model of the car. There were no streetlights in that section of the road at the time.

Hillard said police at the time discussed hypnotizing her, but never did. Her only contact with police beyond that one interview came earlier this year, when Foley contacted her, she said.

Hillard described herself as troubled in school and said her friendship with Michele came from wanting to be a better person.

Their homerooms were next door to one another. They went to dances together and made an occasional trip to the mall.

“I was looking to hang out with better friends,” she said. “And she was somebody I wanted to know – to be a better person.”

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