CASSELBERRY, Fla. — A few dozen people in the Deer Run community lit candles and prayed Wednesday night in honor of the man they knew as “Jorge,” even as investigators still haven’t solved his death.
The 63-year-old was walking his dog in early June when a silver SUV ran over him and drove off, police said.
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The car was later found engulfed in flames one mile from the crash site.
Vigil happening now for the man who was killed in a hit and run in Deer Creek last week. Lots unknown about this tragedy, but neighbors say traffic has been a huge problem for 18 months. @WFTV pic.twitter.com/izRLi0KWre
— Nick Papantonis WFTV (@NPapantonisWFTV) June 8, 2022
Neighbors who knew Jorge said he didn’t have any close family, and his next of kin hadn’t been located or notified, which is why his name was still being withheld. The man lived around the corner from where he was hit.
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“It could have been just one miscalculation that could have happened to any one of us on any given day and had tragic outcomes,” Deer Run HOA President Deborah Bauer said, careful to reserve judgement for whoever was behind the wheel while the investigation was ongoing.
Bauer and her neighbors instead turned their attention to the road, which they said had traffic problems. Ever since GPS systems began routing drivers through their community, they said people drove too fast and occasionally ran off the road into people’s driveways and homes. They described multiple close calls with humans.
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Bauer and one county leader present at the vigil said everything was on the table, and they’d begin meeting to plan out how to redesign the road to slow people down and make them pay more attention in the coming days.
“If they see things that are not a wide open, straight shot, hopefully maybe they will slow down so that nothing like this ever happens again,” she said.
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