Madeira Beach, FL : 92-year-old Vaclav Duda killed in hit & run crash in Pinellas County on Friday night, March 6, 2015

A Czechoslovakia native, Duda, 92, escaped to Germany in 1945 to flee Communism and then worked for the CIA, crossing the German-Czech border more than 50 times gathering intelligence for the United States, Ruth Duda said. Later, Duda went to Brazil where he met Ruth, to whom he was married for 58 years.

But on Saturday, Ruth, 81, was mourning her husband after he was killed in a hit-and-run accident.

Duda of Madeira Beach was crossing 150th Avenue near Gulf Boulevard around 7:20 p.m. Friday when he was struck and killed by a gray Mercedes, Pinellas sheriff's deputies said.

He was pushing a shopping cart of groceries from a nearby supermarket back to the couple's condo and crossed the street midblock, deputies said.

Witnesses told deputies the driver, a man who appeared in his 20s, stopped and got out of the car, looked down at Duda, then got back in and drove away.

About two hours after the crash, someone called the Sheriff's Office to report a suspicious vehicle at the Bay Pines Walmart, sheriff's officials said. Deputies found an unoccupied gray Mercedes with a broken windshield and damaged front bumper.

Investigators have been in touch with the registered owner of the Mercedes and the investigation was ongoing Saturday afternoon.

"He was a hero, and he didn't die like a hero," Ruth Duda said of her husband.

The couple married in 1956 and came to America three years later, Ruth said, and they lived all over the country.

First, they settled in California and flipped houses, Ruth said, and then moved to Pasco County where they raised chickens. The couple then spent a year in Nebraska, but Ruth said she hated the cold. So they moved back to California, only to later return to Temple Terrace, where Duda, an agricultural engineer by trade, did odd jobs because his English wasn't very good.

"We traveled America many, many times," his wife said.

Duda had mild diabetes, but was otherwise healthy, Ruth said, and the two used to joke that he would outlive his wife because he was so strong.

"He didn't deserve to die the way he did," Ruth said. "They said he didn't suffer. He died on impact, because the car must have been going really fast."

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92-year-old man killed in hit & run in Pinellas