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FHP: Nearly 100 lives lost to local hit-and-run crashes in Northeast Florida in 6 years

By Cole Heath, Action News Jax
By Cole Heath, Action News Jax

FHP tells Action News Jax that 99 people died in hit-and-run crashes across six Northeast Florida counties from 2011 through February 27, 2017.

Monday marked one year since three people died in a hit-and-run crash in Oceanway, and the suspect in that case has still not been located.

In St. Augustine, another local family is searching for justice after their son, Dalton Kuhn, was hit and killed while skateboarding along State Road 312 in St. Johns County.

READ FULL REPORT ON HIT-AND-RUN CRASHES FROM FHP

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“We’re trying to hold it together; you can’t fight for justice if you’re falling apart,” Dalton’s mom Wendy Kuhn said.

Dalton would have turned 17 last month.

His mom has been very vocal since his death, and offered this message for the driver of the Chevy Silverado with a missing passenger side mirror, the vehicle that is believed to have struck her son. Investigators are still looking for it and the driver.

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“In that spilt moment, you chose to drive off. You changed everyone’s life, not just yours,” Kuhn said, standing next to her son’s roadside memorial.

Dalton’s case is one of 45,057 hit-and-run crashes FHP investigated in Duval, St. Johns, Clay, Putnam, Nassau and Baker counties from 2011 through February 27 of this year.

In St. Johns County, troopers saw a total of nearly 3,500 hit-and-run crashes, where 15 people died. Nine deadly hit-and-run cases are still open in St. Johns County.

Troopers tell Action News Jax that the FHP recently added a new officer who specifically investigates hit-and-run crashes for our region.

Officials say that seven of the nine cases investigated so far have been closed by arrest or had charges filed.

Meanwhile, in Duval County, during that time period between 2011 and February 2017, FHP investigated more than 35,000 hit-and-run crashes that killed 62 people.

Right now, across all six counties, FHP is investigating 55 unsolved, deadly hit-and-run cases dating back to 2011.

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Twenty-two of them are in Duval County, 10 are in Clay County, and nine are in St. Johns County.

In 2014, George and Hazel Gillis lost their nephew Christopher McDowell to a hit-and-run crash on Jacksonville's Southside.

The Gillises tell Action News Jax that the FHP closed their nephew’s case due to a lack of evidence with no arrests.

“How can [the hit-and-run driver] go on, how can they sleep at night,” George Gillis asked.

“I just want to know what really happened, was [Christopher] in the street, I just want closure,” Hazel Gillis said.

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