Police Seek to ID Victim, Driver in Fatal Hit-Run

The man was 60-plus years old, wearing tan trousers, a baggy sweater and nice shoes. He was carrying bags containing Jack in the Box hamburgers and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And he was walking south at dusk on a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway known as South Coast Highway.

That is all Laguna Beach police knew Wednesday about the victim of Tuesday evening’s fatal hit-and-run accident at the southern end of town. Police are seeking information about him, and about the second of at least six drivers who hit him--the driver who killed him, stopped briefly and then sped away.

“It was horrible,” said Police Chief Jim Spreine.

A Ford Expedition driven by a woman turning north from the driveway of St. Catherine School was the first to strike the victim, who had been walking in the outside northbound lane, police said. The man was still alive, and the driver, whom police would not identify, immediately pulled into the turning lane and dialed 911 on a cell phone.

Then she and her two sons, ages 11 and 12, watched a series of vehicles hit the injured pedestrian at 55 to 60 mph.

“Other cars were coming and they just kept hitting him,” the frantic woman said on a 911 tape released by police. “If I could only have gotten him out of the street, he would still be alive.”

Said Spreine: “She’s putting all of the blame on herself. But she’s not the one that killed him.”

Police say the driver of the second car, believed to be a white sport utility vehicle, delivered the fatal blow. Investigators are unsure whether the driver was a man or a woman. They plan to distribute fliers to auto body shops and carwashes in the hope of obtaining information.

“This is a very, very difficult crime to solve,” Spreine said. “We have to have a tip or a lead. Or maybe a person’s conscience finally gets to them.”

Four or five other vehicles subsequently hit the victim. One of them may have left the scene too.

The accident frayed nerves among residents along South Coast Highway, four lanes of undivided roadway marked by bougainvillea and blind approaches, where the 45 mph speed limit is routinely ignored.

“People just fly through there,” said Kevin Hornby, manager of the Laguna Terrace mobile home park. “I know of three people in this park who have been involved in major accidents. I can hear the screech of tires and the crunch of metal from up here.”

Spreine, however, said there is no evidence that the area is any more dangerous than the rest of the busy coastal road.

What is striking, he and others said, is the callousness of the suspect who drove away, leaving the battered man’s body to be hit by other cars.

“That is beyond beyond,” said Pamela Goldstein, who lives across the highway.

Where the victim was headed remains a mystery. He carried no identification, and investigators say he may have been a transient.

A security camera taped him purchasing hamburgers at Jack in the Box in central Laguna Beach at 5:03 p.m. He was struck about 45 minutes later about a mile down the road, carrying enough food for more than one person.

Anyone with information is asked to call Laguna Beach police at (949) 497-0701.