Washington Post - Tuesday, March 2, 2004; Page B04
The driver of a sport-utility vehicle that slammed into the rear of a disabled car on Interstate 95 early Sunday fled in a panic but did not realize he also had struck a man and carried his body for more than eight miles, his attorneys said yesterday.
The incident killed Fitsum Gebreegziabher, 27, of Toronto, who apparently had stopped in the Mixing Bowl area of Springfield with a flat tire. There is no shoulder along the lanes of I-95 just north of the Franconia Springfield Parkway, and he was struck by the SUV about 4 a.m. as he stood behind his 1989 Toyota Camry in the left lane.
Josuel P. Galdino, 25, was behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi Montero, with a friend from Pennsylvania alongside him, Galdino’s attorneys said. The passenger reported to police that the Camry was stopped with no lights or warning flares and that the Montero was not speeding when it crashed into the rear of the Camry.
“They continued to drive. They were very upset,” said Daniel T. Lopez, one of Galdino’s attorneys. He said that Galdino thought he might have glimpsed someone behind the Camry but that after the collision, he did not hear or see anyone, and “he didn’t feel anything dragging beneath the car,” Lopez said.
Galdino and his friend had been at Nation, a dance club in Southeast Washington, his attorneys said.
“We don’t think he was drunk,” said Michael C. Sprano, another of Galdino’s attorneys, though he declined to give specifics about Galdino’s drinking. “I understand why police would make that assumption, but when a car is parked in a lane of travel, in an area with a lot of accidents, sometimes terrible tragedies occur,” Sprano said. He said Galdino and his friend were afraid to get out of the Montero in the Mixing Bowl area “and panicked.”
Fairfax County police pointed out that anyone involved in a serious accident, with or without an injury, is required to stop at or near the scene.
A Virginia State Police trooper discovered the damaged Camry shortly before 4 a.m. and ordered it towed, said Sgt. Wallace L. Bouldin of the state police. He said there was no indication at the time that anyone had been injured.
Galdino drove the Montero down I-95 and then to the Lorton Station neighborhood, to his townhouse in the 9100 block of Stone Garden Drive. While he was backing up in the predawn darkness to find a parking space in his townhouse complex, Lopez said, Gebreegziabher’s body apparently became dislodged from the Montero’s grill. Lopez said the body was found about 50 yards from Galdino’s house.
Even then, Galdino and his passenger, whom Lopez knew only as Eric, “still didn’t see the body until the police came,” though police said Galdino reported the body in his 911 call.
Gebreegziabher’s “entire body was not stuck underneath that car,” Lopez said, noting that the trail of blood along I-95 and the damage to the victim’s body were not consistent with its being dragged a long distance. He theorized that Gebreegziabher had somehow become attached to or impaled by the front grill.
Galdino has a conviction for improper driving after being involved in an accident on southbound Interstate 395 in December 2002, not far from where Sunday’s incident occurred, according to Alexandria court records. Galdino’s summons indicates that the accident occurred in rainy weather during the afternoon rush hour just north of Route 236. He was fined $40.
