Seattle Man Held In Autistic Boy’s Hit-And-Run Death

A man police suspect of striking and killing a 3-year-old boy in Maple Valley late Wednesday and then driving off was arrested Thursday after police found the car they believe he was driving.

King County sheriff’s deputies arrested the suspect Thursday at about 10:45 a.m. at his Maple Valley home a short while after his dark-colored 2002 Acura was found in a Safeway parking lot nearby, said sheriff’s spokesman John Urquhart.

The man, whose name has not yet been released, has been booked into jail at the Regional Justice Center in Kent under suspicion of felony hit and run and vehicular homicide, said Urquhart.

According to a witness, the car struck the boy after he had wandered out of his house in his pajamas at about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

A different driver noticed the boy on Southeast 240th Street near 202nd Avenue Southeast, just as the driver saw an oncoming vehicle strike the boy, according to the King County Sheriff’s Office. The car that struck the child drove off.

Urquhart said police were tipped to the location of the car by the defendant’s employer.

After police found the car and confirmed the man’s address, they arrested him without incident.
According to a report from KOMO/4, the boy was autistic and deaf, and had managed to open the front door to his house despite the fact that it had several locks and a child safety device on it.

The suspect is a pizza delivery driver working in the area, according to the KOMO report. The driver apparently mentioned to his boss that he had hit something, said KOMO, but he didn’t know it was a child.