EL DORADO -- The Union County Sheriff's Office hopes to find the driver responsible for fatally hitting a pedestrian in 2011 and then leaving the scene.
Thomas Lake Patterson, 40, was found dead in the middle of the roadway in June 2011. His death was classified as a homicide, because the vehicle that struck him failed to stop, the El Dorado News-Times reported.
The sheriff's office seeks tips so it can solve the case and give the Patterson family some closure in his death. Capt. Ricky Roberts said investigators have followed leads that ultimately have led to a dead end.
"It's just like with any unsolved case," Roberts said. "Somebody out there knows something, and we're hoping that somebody will come forward and put us on the right track, so we can find out what happened to him."
Witnesses say that Patterson appeared to be intoxicated before seeing him walking in the area where the hit-and-run occurred.
Roberts said a toxicology report from the state crime lab showed that he had ethanol, or drinking alcohol, and a prescription drug commonly used to treat anxiety in his system.
Patterson had visited with friends at their residence, around 2,500 feet from where he was killed. A private investigator that was hired by his family after his death said that Patterson was involved in an altercation before leaving his friends' home. Roberts declined to comment on much of the private investigator's report.
Roberts said that reviewing the case file with fresh eyes may help investigators with the sheriff's office find connections that had been missed before.
"Our hope is that someone will come forward and give us information on who's responsible. They can answer questions the family has and that we as investigators have," Roberts said.
State Desk on 06/30/2015