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Village witness may have a clue in hit-and-run on W. Side Highway

By Lori Haught

Five weeks after musician Joshua Crouch was killed in a hit-and-run accident on the corner of W. 12th St. and the West Side Highway. Possible clues are just now surfacing in this mystery.

Gary Friedman, whose apartment overlooks the intersection where Crouch was hit, said he saw a large tractor-trailer, most likely an 18-wheeler, backing up around the time of Crouch’s death on Mon. Sept. 18 sometime around 3:20 a.m.

Friedman was getting ready for bed and heard the beeping and looked out the window. He said the highway had been unusually quiet and the tractor-trailer was the only vehicle he had seen on the road for some time.

He hadn’t thought to look too closely at the truck, but he did say that it was an unmarked white truck. He also said that the truck looked like it was for cross-country journeys, not local deliveries.

“It was huge,” Friedman said. “It could be on the other side of the country by now.”

He said he saw the truck 20 minutes before the police showed up to the scene of the crime.

Friedman said he has called the police twice to report what he saw, but no one has gotten back in touch with him.

Meanwhile, Crouch’s family and friends are still pursuing the investigation. Crouch’s band mate and best friend, Morgan Lamarre, said that Crouch’s clothes are currently being tested for paint flecks and tire marks at the forensics lab.

Lamarre has also begun a petition for more red-light cameras along the West Side Highway after he and James Crouch, Josh’s father, caught several cars on tape running the light at the W. 12th St. intersection.