A Texas man is in custody after allegedly striking a pedestrian, whose body flew through the windshield of the vehicle and into the passenger seat, before driving 38 miles to a Jack in the Box with the victim’s dead body still inside, police say.
The White Settlement Police Department said it received a welfare check call at about 11:15 p.m. on Saturday night, and when the responding officer arrived, they found a gray Kia Forte with front end and windshield damage in a Jack in the Box parking lot.
The officer also reportedly saw what appeared to be a dead human being in the front passenger seat, and immediately had the driver, later identified as 31-year-old Nestor Joel Lujan Flores, step out of the vehicle to be detained.
When emergency crews arrived on the scene, they determined the passenger in Flores’s vehicle was dead.
Police said Flores told authorities he believed he struck an animal in Dallas and continued to drive until he reached the parking lot, where he was detained.
Despite saying he believed he struck an animal, police said Flores never notified police or emergency responders of the incident.
An alert was sent to police agencies throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area to find out if any of the departments had received a report of a hit-and-run or pedestrian crash, though at the time, there had not been any.
On Sunday morning, the White Settlement Police Department received a notification from the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office that there had been a crash on the westbound service road of Highway 30 near Cockrell Road.
The sheriff’s office told the department human remains were located near the roadway which may match the victim’s body, which was recovered from inside Flores’s vehicle.
Both the Dallas County and Tarrant County medical examiner’s offices will work together to identify who the victim is.
Since investigators believe the crash occurred in Dallas County, the White Settlement Police Department handed the case over to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office.
The investigation suggests Flores continued to drive for 38 miles from the scene of the crash until coming to a stop in the restaurant parking lot.
Detectives say the impact was so severe, the victim’s body was thrown through the windshield and came to rest on the passenger seat.
Flores’s vehicle was impounded for investigation and a blood search warrant was obtained, pending test results.
He remains in custody on a pending charge of intoxicated manslaughter, according to police.
The department added that Flores was previously arrested in 2020 by the Plano Police Department for driving while intoxicated and convicted in 2021 for the same charge in Collin County.
