St. Joseph County prosecutors have charged the driver in Wednesday’s hit-and-run crash on Portage Avenue in South Bend. It was another case aided by the city’s Real Time Crime Center.
Police say the victim, 20-year-old Josimar Perez-Gonzalez, was unresponsive and receiving palliative care in the hospital Friday, two days after 21-year-old Michael Pyburn hit him. They say Perez-Gonzalez was working for Niezgodski Plumbing near the street when Pyburn struck him while driving a white SUV. Pyburn then drove from the scene before police arrived.
But witnesses had told police the suspect was wearing a distinctive coat. Analysts in the police department’s Real Time Crime Center spotted video of a man wearing a coat that matched their description, and they determined he had been driving a vehicle registered to his mother.
Prosecutors say Pyburn has never had a driver’s license. And they found Xanax pills in his sock.
Pyburn was held Friday in the jail. He’s charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving serious bodily injury, and driving without ever receiving a license, both Level 6 felonies, along with misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance.
