ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 5, 1993                   TAG: 9310050237
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DRIVER NOT CHARGED IN FATAL ACCIDENT

No charges will be filed against a 19-year-old woman whose car struck and killed a man fixing a tire in the middle of the road during rush hour last Wednesday, Salem Commonwealth's Attorney Fred King said Monday.

"From what I know right now it was truly an accident," King said. "I do not know of any fact that would justify an appropriate criminal charge."

King said the driver may not have seen the man, who was crouched beside a pickup truck, because she was driving west, almost directly into the setting sun.

Police identified the driver as Melissa C. Harless of Dry Hollow Road.

Joseph M. Hite, 32, was dead upon arrival at Lewis-Gale Hospital after the 5:20 p.m. accident in the 600 Block of West Fourth Street.

Hite, an employee of Wimmer Tire & Brake Center on Fourth Street, was hit while tightening the lug nuts on a truck that had stopped in a narrow center lane.

The truck had been serviced at Wimmer Tire earlier in the day, police said.

Keywords:
FATALITY 


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