Another Hit and Run Death

This case has been adjudicated in court so it can be discussed in this forum. The names and locations are being withheld to protect my identity. A little over two years ago, a male suspect, 28 years old, was driving in a stolen car. He was high on PCP, and probably Meth as well; driving at a high rate of speed on the wrong side of the road. He corrected himself long enough to get into the middle lane.

Up ahead at the red light, a man had run out of gas. He called his neighbor who quickly came to his rescue with a gallon of gas. Both men were standing outside of the broken down truck, waiting. The neighbor who came to help parked his truck directly behind the other truck.

The suspect, not wanting to stop for a red light because he was high and probably didn't see the trucks, ran right into the back of the first truck, throwing it to the side, then colliding with the broken down truck. That caused the broken down truck to rotate clockwise throwing the two standing victims about 40 feet away.

The suspect got out of the car, looked over at the two victims lying in the street, and ran away. Both victims were transported to local hospitals, with the one neighbor who came to help dying about one month later.

So here was my evidence to investigate this fatal hit and run collision. The car was stolen by a male White, my suspect happened to be Black. There was a cellular phone left in the car. There was hair and tissue left in the car by the suspect (mainly on the sun visor where his head hit upon impact with the trucks). That was about all of the evidence.

I wrote a search warrant for the phone records of the cellular phone. This seemed like the ideal place to start. I obtained the phone records within hours (the phone company actually stayed over an hour to accommodate my request; thank you). I search for a match on the name of the person who owned the cellular phone and he was a much older man than the 25-30 year old that I was looking for. I went to his apartment listed on the billing records and he no longer lived there. The apartment manager gave me the name of the person on the lease to the apartment and it was a woman.

I made another search request from within my department and located another address. I went to that address and bingo, there was the owner of the phone and his wife (the owner of the phone told me that he gave the phone to some guy on the street over a month before our conversation). I asked for the names of their children, and the mother told me reluctantly. I started doing criminal work ups on the sons and found that one son had three prior hit and runs, several driving without a license charge, and numerous DUI convictions. Would you also believe that when I ran all of his past arrest reports, his drug of choice was PCP. By the way, he was also a drug dealer.

I had several photos on file for him, and he looked different in every photo. I put him into two separate photo line-ups and started to show them to the witnesses and other victims who survived. I only obtained one tentative identification; certainly not enough to hang my hat on. I discovered that my possible suspect was in jail. I went with a partner to interview him and he basically stated, "I don't know nothin' about nothin'."
I had my crime lab (CSI kind of people), go out and recover the DNA from the car and they got many samples. My suspect's DNA was already in the system so I was just waiting for a match.

Another unit within my organization identified and arrested the suspect who stole the car from a local dealership. I interviewed that suspect and showed him a photographic line-up with a photo of my possible suspect. He identified my suspect by middle name, and stated, yeah, I gave him the car and he told me that he got into an accident on the freeway (this accident occurred about a half of a mile from a freeway).

The suspect from the stolen car not only received jail time for the stolen car, but our department also discovered a large quantity of explosives in his possession, so he got even more time for that. He was a several time loser and his credibility would come into question if we tried to use him as a witness.

Several months later, the DNA came back to a match for my suspect. Since he was on formal probation (he had to check in with a probation officer), I set up an appointment with his probation officer for him to come in. I saw him in a security guard uniform when he walked into the office. I went up to him and told him that his DNA was a match for the car. I took him back to the station to re-interview him. He was dumbfounded about his DNA being in the car and couldn't image how that could be. He still denied everything even after I presenting him with some compelling evidence. I arrested and booked him for murder (we are allowed to arrest for murder when certain circumstances arise).

About 20 minutes after he was booked, the jail called me and told me that my suspect wanted to talk. I went down with my partner and he told me that he now remembered being in the black car, and that he had hit a curb. I told him that I didn't believe his story and walked away (with a valuable piece of evidence since he admitted to being in the car).

I presented the case to the district attorney. We never saw eye-to-eye on the case and a lesser charge of manslaughter was filed. With all of the charges combined, he was looking at a grand total of 12 years state prison time. Much to my displeasure, a plea bargain was worked out for him to spend 6 years in prison. He was to also pay $12,000 in restitution to the family of the victim.

The victim's family: The victim, who went out to help his neighbor, had four kids. His wife was five months pregnant with twins. He never got to meet his twins, and they will never know their dad. The loss of the father of six left the family in financial ruin. They are now barely surviving in the house that the father kept afloat. Some local press coverage brought out some giving persons. They received some financial help from philanthropists, but it won't bring back their dad.

As for the suspect, he is planning on getting married while in prison. I'm sure that when he gets out, he will further help out the community by dealing some more drugs.