Dallas fatal crash sent pedestrian through windshield. Driver continued for miles, cops say
A pedestrian who was hit by a car Saturday night in Dallas crashed through its windshield — ending up dead in the passenger seat — as the driver continued his journey until reaching a Jack in the Box parking lot in White Settlement, police said.
When officers were called to the fast food restaurant around 11 p.m. Saturday, they found the victim’s body upside down in the passenger seat, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Paramedics were called to the scene, but the victim — identified by the medical examiner as 45-year-old Terry Lydell Ivory — was already dead, White Settlement police said in a news release.
The driver of the gray Kia Forte, 31-year-old Nestor Lujan Flores, was asleep in the car when police arrived and told officers he thought he’d hit a deer somewhere between Dallas and White Settlement, the news release states.
Investigators said in an update Sunday that investigators in Dallas County determined that Flores hit Ivory in a crosswalk on a service road in Dallas. The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, which is taking over the case, said the crash happened on the Interstate 30 service road near Cockrell Hill Road.
There, according to White Settlement police, Dallas County authorities found human body parts they believe are the result of the crash. The victim’s legs were severed below the knee and were found near the crash scene in Dallas, according to the affidavit.
Investigators with White Settlement police believe Flores drove 38 miles with his windshield broken and Ivory’s dead body in his passenger seat.
Flores was seemingly unaware that a person was dead inside his car, police said.
Police said a blood test is pending to confirm that Flores was intoxicated. The arresting officer said it “smelled like a brewery in the back seat of his patrol car,” White Settlement Police Chief Christopher Cook said Monday at a news conference where Tarrant County officials discussed DWI enforcement for the upcoming holidays.
“You are so impaired that you strike a pedestrian on a service road, and you don’t even realize it is a human being?” Cook said. “I cannot fathom the level of impairment.”
A person who called 911 from the Jack in the Box drive-through said the driver was slumped over the steering wheel and the car had “extensive front end, hood and windshield damage,” according to the news release. Witnesses also reported that Flores, covered in blood, had walked inside the Jack in the Box and asked for a phone charger, the arrest warrant affidavit states.
Investigators said it appears Flores actually arrived at the Jack in the Box in the 8700 block of the I-30 service road, about eight miles west of downtown Fort Worth, sometime between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. according to the release.
One officer quickly realized that there was a body in the passenger seat of the vehicle.
The officer got Flores out of the car and detained him, according to the release. That’s when he told the officer he thought he’d hit an animal.
The case is eerily similar to what is called the “windshield murder,” a crash on Oct. 26, 2001, in south Fort Worth in which driver Chante Mallard hit Gregory Glenn Biggs. He crashed into her windshield and got stuck there, and she drove home and parked in her garage, leaving him to bleed to death for hours.
Mallard was convicted of murder in 2003 and is serving a 50-year sentence in a Texas prison.
Authorities in White Settlement asked other law enforcement agencies in the North Texas area to help them determine where Saturday’s crash took place, leading them to connect with the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators asked police from Arlington, Fort Worth and Grand Prairie and sheriff offices in Dallas and Tarrant counties for assistance.
They initially believed the crash happened somewhere between Arlington and White Settlement because police cameras that read license plates picked up the car in Arlington around New York Avenue and East Mayfield Road around 6 p.m.
Flores, who lives in Arlington, faces a charge of intoxication manslaughter, according to police. Investigators received a blood sample with a warrant and are waiting for results.
Court records from Collin County indicate Flores pleaded guilty in 2021 to driving while intoxicated in 2020. Court records list the sentence as “local jail,” but do say for how long.
This story was originally published December 17, 2023 at 3:16 PM.