A 48-year-old Athens man is facing a homicide charge for a weekend hit-and-run accident that killed a pedestrian on the Athens Perimeter.
Warrants for the arrest of Manuel Perez, whose last known address was on Ashmore Drive, were obtained Wednesday afternoon, a day after authorities located Perez’s heavily-damaged car parked behind the suspect’s residence.
Athens-Clarke County police said after unsuccessfully searching for Perez, they feared he might have fled for his native country of Mexico. He has not been seen since the day of the accident and did not reported for work at Benson’s Bakery in Bogart, police said.
Perez is being charged for the death early Saturday of 22-year-old Athens resident Charles Avery Sokol.
The suspect’s silver Nissan Sentra had damage consistent with having struck a pedestrian, including a dented hood and a windshield with a large hole in it. The roof is partially collapsed and its back window busted out from the force of the victim’s body landing on the roof, according to police.
Physical evidence appeared to have been left on the car by the victim’s body, police said.
The Nissan fit the description of a car seen by a witness leaving the scene of the fatal collision, exiting the Perimeter at Danielsville Road and traveling north toward Freeman Drive. Ashmore Drive is a side street of Freemen Drive.
One search warrant, for the suspect’s home, was executed on Tuesday and another was executed Wednesday morning for the suspect’s impounded car in a police garage, said Athens-Clarke County police Lt. Don Eckert. Arrest warrants were applied for after the search was concluded, Eckert said.
The warrants charge Perez with first-degree homicide by vehicle, leaving the scene of an accident with injuries and driving without a license.
Sokol, who originally was from Hartwell and took classes at the University of Georgia, was living in the Bridgewater student housing development, located adjacent to the highway where Sokol was killed. Witnesses told police they saw Sokol at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, running along the dividing line of the two eastbound lanes of the Athens Perimeter, away from the Commerce Road interchange and toward Bridgewater.
Police said they found Sokol’s body when investigating multiple 911 calls from witnesses who saw him running on the highway. They did not know why the young man was running in the middle of the highway.
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