Man Flees Crash at Daughter's School, Then Kills Classmate In Second Hit and Run: Police

News By TooFab Staff |
Hillsborough County Jail/GoFundMe

The victim's family speaks out, condemning the suspect and revealing how the incident mirrors the death of the teen's father just three years earlier.

A Florida man is behind bars after allegedly fleeing the scene of two crashes, killing a teenager in one of them.

Edgardo Joel Rosado Perez (above left) has been charged with leaving the scene of a fatal crash, following the death of 18-year-old Bartow high school student Zachariah Mark Clabough (above right) on Wednesday.

According to Florida Highway Patrol (via FOX13), 41-year-old Perez dropped his daughter off at high school that morning and was involved in a minor crash. While fleeing "at a high rate of speed" away from that incident in his 2018 Hyundai sedan, he allegedly struck and killed Clabough, who was walking to the same school his daughter attended.

Rosado Perez is accused of driving away from that scene as well, before returning home and parking the vehicle inside the garage. Authorities say he then drove away in a 2017 blue Ford Fiesta, which was tracked down to the parking lot of a local mall before Rosado Perez was arrested inside the building.

A reporter for The Ledger who was sent to Rosado Perez's home on Wednesday described seeing the Hyundai -- saying "The front end and hood were badly dented, and the windshield was smashed, with a large hole on the driver's side."

According to Tampa Bay Times, Rosado Perez was still being held without bond at Falkenburg Road Jail, awaiting transfer to Polk County.

In a heartbreaking twist of fate, the victim's family revealed the fatal crash comes three and a half years after Clabough's father was killed by a drunk driver while standing outside a gas station.

"I can't believe that we're having to do it all over again. The man just got sentenced back in December for killing my dad. And now it's March and I lose my brother? It's just so hard," Zachariah's older sister Dakota Runyon told WTSP.

"He didn't sit with my brother. He didn't call 911. He didn't even stop. He just kept going. As if nothing happened," Runyon also said of the suspect. "He killed somebody. And he had his entire life ahead of him. He was just learning who he was, and what he liked, and who he wanted to be."

A GoFundMe page set up for Clabough's funeral expenses has already raised $15,700 -- well past their starting goal of $10,000 goal.