Shot in Back of Head : Jogger Killed by Gun, Not Pickup Truck

A Navy nurse thought to have been killed by a hit-and-run driver while jogging Thursday night actually was shot in the back of the head, authorities said Friday.

The case, formerly considered a traffic accident fatality, is now being viewed as a homicide, they said.

“We don’t think a pickup truck put a bullet hole in the back of (the victim’s) head,” said a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, which initially handled the incident.

Coroners, who performed an autopsy on Lt. Patricia Elaine Schmidt, 27, a nurse at the Navy Hospital in Balboa Park, informed the Sheriff’s Department of their findings.

Homicide detectives are investigating. No suspects had been named by Friday evening.

Authorities initially had reported that Schmidt had been jogging with her husband, Charles, about 8:30 p.m. Thursday on the right shoulder of Quarry Road, half a mile south of Swap Meet Road in Spring Valley, when a driver of a small truck struck her and then sped away.

“At the time, we had no reason to believe it was anything but a hit-and-run,” Deputy Coroner William Leard said.

Investigators said Charles Schmidt told them he had been jogging some distance behind his wife with his head down and did not see the truck hit her.

The description of the vehicle was provided by a witness who called the CHP shortly after the incident, officers said.

Sheriff’s investigators are uncertain whether the truck actually existed or who the witness was, a spokesman said.

Schmidt was pronounced dead at the scene by a Life Flight helicopter physician, said Leard, the deputy coroner.

The incident was the second in the last several days in which a jogger was hurt or killed. On Wednesday night in Bonita, Lee Johnson, 20, was critically injured when he was struck by a pickup truck and flung against a power pole.

Police said the driver of the truck, Patrick Garza Jr., 20, pulled over after hitting Johnson. He was not cited.