The State - News from April 12, 1988

A hit-run driver haunted by memories of killing a pedestrian in Santa Barbara actually ran over a dead body, California Highway Patrol officers said. The man knows he hit someone on U.S. 101 after drinking. But what he doesn’t know, CHP investigator Maury Kane said, is that his wasn’t the first vehicle to hit the pedestrian, so he has no criminal liability. “I see the accident over and over. It doesn’t stop. I am considering ending this nightmare,” the man wrote in an anonymous letter that the CHP received Christmas Eve. Despite his remorse, the man wrote, he would not turn himself in. Kane said he was releasing details of the accident and witness accounts in hopes the man will contact officers so they can take his statement. In the early morning of Dec. 19, Salvatore Sancinito died on the freeway near Chapala Street. CHP officers say he was struck by four vehicles--and none of the drivers stopped.