Crime & Courts

Hit-and-run driver pulled victim from windshield before driving off, charges say

Charges filed against a man accused of a fatal hit-and-run Monday morning in Anchorage say the suspect pulled the victim from the windshield of his car before driving off.

Quinton Molinar, 20, has been charged with manslaughter, leaving the scene of an accident without rendering aid and tampering with physical evidence in the collision at New Seward Highway's intersection with Northern Lights Boulevard. All of the charges are felonies.

The identity of the man police say Molinar struck and killed has not yet been released, pending notification of his family.

A summary of several witness interviews says a gold Nissan Maxima sedan ran a red light, barreled though the intersection and struck a pedestrian in the crosswalk. The sedan then crashed into a bus stop sign and drove onto a sidewalk. The driver exited the sedan, pulled the pedestrian out of the windshield and dropped him on the street, according to the charges.

Molinar stands accused of getting back into his vehicle and speeding off.

Anchorage police responded to the collision at 5:38 a.m. Monday. Officers found the victim dead on the ground on the northwest corner of the intersection and determined he had been walking northbound in the crosswalk on Northern Lights Boulevard.

Witness descriptions and physical evidence "support an initial conclusion that the victim had the right of way and was walking in the marked crosswalk when the sedan struck and killed him," the charges say. The victim was struck at a high rate of speed, the charging document says.

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Molinar called police shortly before 5 p.m. Monday to turn himself in. Investigators interviewed Molinar and his mother Felicidad Sails. The police noted facial injuries on Molinar and the smell of alcohol coming from Sails. The mother told police she didn't know if her son had been drinking before the fatal collision.

Police haven't received blood test results for Molinar, according to the charges.

The suspect said he was driving with Sails to pick up pizza when he struck the pedestrian, the charges say. He described pulling that person from the windshield of his vehicle before heading home, covering the sedan with a tarp and throwing away his clothes, according to the charges.

Jerzy Shedlock

Jerzy Shedlock is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2017.

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