SAN DIEGO -- Detectives Thursday arrested a suspect in a hit-and-run crash that fatally injured a 19-year-old coed in the College area last weekend.

Eric Joseph Leeman, 20, surrendered to officers shortly before 8 a.m. at his rented home four blocks east of the scene of the crash, according to police.

Several hours later, Mesa College freshman Whitney Young died of her injuries at Scripps Mercy Hospital. The teen suffered severe brain trauma in the crash and never regained consciousness.

The car that allegedly struck Young was parked in a driveway in front of the suspect's house, SDPD Sgt. Jeff Fellows said. A motorcycle officer spotted Leeman's burgundy 1997 BMW 528i while making his morning rounds in the neighborhood just north of the SDSU campus, he said.

Broken-off auto parts left at the scene of the accident matched damage to the front passenger side of the automobile, the sergeant said.

The victim was crossing Montezuma Road at Rockford Drive with four companions when an eastbound sedan struck her about 3:15 a.m. Sunday. The driver did not stop, witnesses reported.

Young, who moved out of her family's Palos Verdes home in August to attend college in San Diego, had planned to eventually transfer to SDSU and had aspirations for a career in teaching, according to her father.

In a statement released to the news media this evening, Young's parents said the deadly accident had "devastated" their family.

"We are heartbroken over the death of our precious daughter Whitney," they wrote. "Her death is a senseless tragedy that has taken the life of this beautiful young woman who had her whole life to live."

The Youngs thanked the San Diego Police Department for tracking down the man who "may have done this to Whitney and then ran."

When the detective in charge of the case knocked on Leeman's door this morning, the suspect was cooperative and acknowledged that he had been "involved" in the accident, though he denied being intoxicated at the time, Fellows said.

Leeman claimed that he thought he'd struck an animal, possibly a raccoon, while on his way home, the sergeant said.

The suspect didn't immediately say where he had been that night, but one of his housemates said Leeman had been to a party in the hours prior to the accident, Fellows said.

On Tuesday, authorities announced a $10,000 reward in the case, $9,000 of it posted by Young's family.