Before John Hofstetter clocked into his job at Tracker Marine in Bolivar on the morning of April 26, 2022, he reportedly told his manager he was going to be late because had just been in a Springfield vehicle accident.
Twenty-one months later, Hofstetter, 44, was formally charged with second-degree involuntarily vehicular manslaughter in the hit-and-run death of a pedestrian, 59-year-old Jerry Westmoreland.
According to court documents, Hofstetter was heading north on Kansas Expressway near Division Street around 5:30 a.m. when police said his SUV drove onto the median and struck Westmoreland and continued to drive. A witness told police he saw the collision and proceeded to follow Hofstetter’s fleeing vehicle to a nearby gas station, telling Hofstetter to return to the scene.
After reportedly driving to the gas station in which he was followed, Hofstetter later arrived to his job at Tracker Marine, where his coworkers told police they noticed damage to his vehicle, matching the description of a news report from a hit-and-run incident earlier in the day. The coincidence was enough for an employee to call in a tip to authorities, believing Hofstetter to be a suspect.