A 47-year-old man is dead after a street fight on Indianapolis’ near east side ended with him in the roadway, where a passing vehicle struck him and the driver sped off without stopping. The Marion County Coroner’s Office has ruled the death a homicide, and police are now hunting for two people who vanished from the scene: the person the victim was fighting with, and the motorist who hit him.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officers responded to the first block of South State Avenue after a person was hit by a car, according to WISH-TV. Officers arrived to find the man in the roadway; he was rushed to a hospital in critical condition and died a short time after arriving, police said. The coroner’s office identified him as Thomas Jeffery Woodford Jr. and determined he died from multiple blunt force injuries, according to a coroner’s announcement reported by WIBC.
Detectives believe Woodford was involved in a disturbance before he ended up in the road and was struck, the station’s report notes. WTHR reported that both the person Woodford was fighting with and the driver of the vehicle that hit him fled the scene, leaving investigators with two separate people to track down from the same incident. The crash happened around 9:30 p.m. on August 13, near South State Avenue just south of East Washington Street.
Two People Still Missing From the Scene
IMPD homicide detectives have asked the public for help identifying anyone who witnessed the fight or the crash, or who may have surveillance footage of either, per the same WTHR account. Investigators are relying on video and eyewitness accounts to identify both the person involved in the altercation with Woodford and the driver who left him in the road…