Defiance,MO : Day after hit-and-run crash on may, Sunday 14th 2017

A day after a crash cost his father his lower leg, D.J. Helfert went looking for the culprit who left the scene.

“I said, ‘I’m not waiting around for the car to be found, I’m going out there,’?” Helfert, 25, said Monday night.

Hours earlier he had gone to the crash scene and found a piece of plastic he believed to be from the driver’s side mirror of the car that had crashed into his father. He also found his father’s shoe.

He started driving around looking for vehicles that matched the description he had of the one that struck the motorcycle his father, Daniel R. Helfert, 45, had been riding on Highway 94 about 7:30 p.m. Sunday. He followed a car down 94, only to get close enough to see that it was too dark.

“I was driving around random roads and looking at random driveways,” he said.

Helfert had just turned around to go back toward the crash scene when he saw a car in a gravel parking lot off 94, down the road from the crash site on 94 near Highway F, that was missing part of its driver’s side mirror. Helfert, who owns an auto repair shop, immediately noticed the car had a new front left tire, he said.

When Helfert got closer, he found blood on the inside of the car’s wheel, he said. He matched the piece of plastic he had found at the crash scene to the car’s mirror.

Then he called police.

“I work on cars every day, so it was easy stuff for me to spot out,” said Helfert.

Missouri Highway Patrol Cpl. Juston Wheetley confirmed that troopers who responded to where Helfert said he had found the car had recovered a vehicle and later took a man into custody.

Wheetley says police expect to charge the man with leaving the scene of a crash that resulted in injury. He could face other charges pending completion of the investigation.

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"I suspect they will have a warrant issued this afternoon for the primary charge," Wheetley said Tuesday.

The highway patrol’s crash report said the car that struck Daniel Helfert’s motorcycle had crossed the center of 94. The crash sent the motorcycle off the side of the road and into a ditch, and Helfert was ejected, the report said. Helfert, of Fenton, was seriously injured and taken by ambulance to Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Creve Coeur. The driver of the car fled, according to the highway patrol.

“I got a call to go the hospital as soon as possible,” the younger Helfert said. “The car had pretty much hit him head-on. He’s awake now, but ... they had to amputate.”

D.J. Helfert took to social media that night to urge others to look for the suspect car and driver.

In a Facebook post, Helfert said two witnesses described the car as a gold-brown or tan 1995 Toyota Tercel or Camry.

He said the driver got out of his car and saw Daniel Helfert on the ground before getting back in the car and driving off. D.J. Helfert asked anyone with information to call him and promised a reward for tips.

Helfert said that the car he had found was a little darker than the color witnesses gave and that it was a Pontiac Grand Prix, not a Toyota. The highway patrol later confirmed that.

“I was kind of irritated that the car hadn’t already been found, but I’m over that,” Helfert said. “It was right there.”

He provided an update on his father Tuesday morning, saying we was recovering after the amputation but would likely need more surgery.




Source :
Day after hit-and-run crash