Essex County OPP say the estranged husband of Nancy Quick has now been arrested and charged with her murder.

Scott Douglas Quick, 48, from Brighton, Ont., was arrested on Wednesday and charged with first degree murder.

“He was a person of interest from the onset,” says Det. Insp. David Hillman at a news conference on Thursday.

Gloria Galbraith, Nancy Quick’s sister-in-law, says the family hoped this day would come.

“Today is not a day for feeling good,” says Galbraith. “Today is a day that the Galbraith family hoped would come, but it brings with it feelings of great sadness and a continuing deep pain and sorrow as over nine years ago a beautiful, loving, caring, daughter, sister, friend was taken from our lives.”

Nancy Quick, a 40-year-old Tecumseh resident, was crossing Church Street in Emeryville on Feb. 23, 2006 when she was struck and killed by a minivan that fled a high rate of speed, say police.

Police say the gold/tan Dodge Caravan had been stolen moments before from a residence in the 1100 block of King Louis Street. The vehicle was recovered a short time later on IC Roy Drive, where witnesses say they saw a man exiting the vehicle.

The victim was rushed to a Windsor hospital with critical injuries and later transferred to a Detroit hospital, where she died five days later.

"This case has no happy ending,” says Hillman. “Two children lost their mother to a tragic and violent set of circumstances in 2006 and these same two children are now faced with the fact that their father is the person charged with perpetrating the offence.

Last June, OPP announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the murder.

Hillman says the reward helped keep the case in the public spotlight, but did not directly lead to the arrest.

“It’s been a long time. It’s been nine years and it’s been a fairly complex investigation so it’s bittersweet in many respects but it’s nice to finally have some closure,” says Hillman.

Scott Quick appeared in a Windsor court Thursday afternoon. The case was put over to April 16.