News Nearby: Somber Anniversary For Man Killed By Hit-And-Run Driver

Here’s a look at some of the top news stories that grabbed headlines in and around your community this week.

East Hampton

Pedestrian Killed by Hit-and-Run Driver Remembered 1 Year Later

Much like Wednesday this year, it was a cold, damp evening in Amagansett exactly one year ago when John Judge left Astro's Pizza for his apartment across the street, only to be struck by a car and left to die on the side of the road.

"We all are thinking of him," Dominick Stanzione, who discovered Judge's body on the side of Montauk Highway, said on Wednesday. The night before, he stopped in at Astro's, owned by Judge's best friends of 40 plus years, Tony Lupo, to have spaghetti and meatballs in recognition of the anniversary of Oct. 23, 2012.

Southampton

'Central Park Five' Film Kicks Off Black Film Festival Next Month

The eighth annual Black Film Festival, happening early next month, will feature films that further the mission of the African American Museum of the East End's mission to "treasure the past, tend to the present and transform the future," according to Brenda Simmons, the museum chairwoman.

Presented by the museum, the film festival opens on Nov. 7 with a screening of "Central Park Five," a documentary about the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping "the Central Park jogger," a white woman in Central Park in 1989. In 2002, a judge vacated the original convictions based on a new confession. The men filed a lawsuit, which remains unsettled.

Riverhead

Walter on Town's Preservation Fund Debt: 'We Have A Huge Problem'

Two candidates running for the Riverhead's supervisor's seat cut to the chase when talking about the town's greatest challenges Tuesday night. According to incumbent Sean Walter, when discussing open space preservation, "We have a huge problem."

North Fork

Mattituck Mom: 'Drugs Totally Destroyed Her Life'

Samantha Dittmeier was only 23 years old when she died of a heroin overdose. The young Mattituck woman had just spent months battling her demons, and had been living at home with her mother, Karen Allar, when she lost the fight on January 20.

Westhampton-Hampton Bays

Gym Teacher Pleads Guilty to Filming Students

Thomas Sheppard, a four-year Westhampton Beach gym teacher, who was charged in March for allegedly recording students in a gym locker room at Westhampton Beach Middle School with his cell phone, pleaded guilty to all charges against him in court on Wednesday.