Kianna Underwood Hit-And-Run: NYPD Makes Arrest Eight Months After Nickelodeon Star’s Death

More than eight months after former Nickelodeon actress Kianna Underwood was killed, the NYPD have made an arrest in connection to her death.

Police arrested Michael Griffiths, 72, of Brooklyn on Tuesday morning (Sept. 29) and charged him with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and leaving the scene of an accident with injury. He was arraigned later that day, pleaded not guilty, and was released on his own recognizance. Griffiths is due back in court on October 27.

The former Nickelodeon actress was crossing Mother Gaston Boulevard at Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville on January 16 when surveillance footage captured a black Ford Explorer cross the double yellow line and strike her as she moved against the signal.

A black-and-gray sedan then hit her and allegedly dragged her roughly two blocks. She was found near Osborn Street and Pitkin Avenue and pronounced dead at the scene.

Underwood died at the scene at age 33.

Griffiths spoke to the New York Daily News in late January and recalled hitting "something" but pushed back on any suggestion of fault.

"I did nothing wrong," he told the paper at the time, describing how he pulled over, watched a second car drag the person, then drove off to take medication because he "felt like I was going to faint.”

Per the newspaper, Griffiths’ car had racked up 41 violations, 25 of them for speeding.

Underwood was 6 years old when she made her first film appearance in the 1999 film The 24 Hour Woman. She voiced Fuchsia Glover on Little Bill and toured as Little Inez in the musical Hairspray. She also appeared in seven episodes of Nickelodeon's All That in 2005.

In the years before her death, Underwood had been experiencing homelessness and was a familiar presence on the same Brownsville blocks where she was struck.