A drunk driver is believed to have travelled half a mile with a ‘mangled’ body in his front seat after he fatally hit a pedestrian and failed to stop.
Police report Paul Joseph Garcia, 24, was driving south of the Slaughter Lane and Menchaca Road intersection in Austin, Texas, at around 10:30pm on Saturday, February 15, when the incident took place.
The driver is believed to have hit the victim so hard that he flew through the windshield and landed in the passenger seat. The victim’s name has not been released.
You can see what happened when Garcia eventually came to a stop here:
Garcia continued driving for half a mile with the body beside him, before coming to a stop near the South Austin Beer Garden. Surveillance cameras captured the moment the driver crawled out of a drainage ditch and made his way to the bar, Fox 7 Austin reports.
The Texas man is said to have walked ‘calmly’ up to the establishment, where staff immediately recognised something was wrong.
The bar’s co-owner, David Pearce, explained:
He was definitely looking for a place to hide and who knows.
Right away my door guy stopped him, he obviously looked distraught.
We had no idea what had happened up the street and it’s just, wow, we just stopped this kid from running away from the cops.
An arrest affidavit cited by KIRO 7 states witnesses saw a man in a white Ford Focus speeding and travelling without headlights. They saw him hit a pedestrian on a South Austin roadway and continue driving.
The victim was said to have been pushing a shopping cart when he was struck by the car.
The affidavit stated:
The impact with the vehicle pushed the cart into a cluster of mailboxes with enough force to bend a two-inch diameter, galvanized steel post that supported mailboxes.
Garcia was refused service at the South Austin Beer Garden, but staff kept him calm and encouraged him to remain at the establishment until police arrived.
Police conducted a sobriety test, which the driver failed, and Garcia was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
The victim’s ‘mangled corpse’ was found in the front passenger seat of the Focus, and Garcia reportedly had evidence on him that matched ‘the blood and body tissue found coated in the interior of the vehicle.’
Garcia has been charged with intoxication manslaughter and accident involving injury, and is being held in lieu of bail set at $110,000.
If you want to discuss any issues relating to alcohol in confidence, contact Drinkline on 0300 123 1110, 9am–8pm weekdays and 11am–4pm weekends for advice and support.
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence contact Cruse Bereavement Care via their national helpline on 0808 808 1677.
Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.