‘Just tell us the truth’: A Missouri family says the sheriff’s office lied about a hit-and-run, then learned whose vehicle struck their 16-year-old

A 16-year-old girl in Missouri died after a St. Francois County Sheriff’s Office vehicle hit her early Saturday, and her family says officials first described the crash as a hit-and-run, according to the New York Post. The sheriff’s office says the responding deputy did not see her in the roadway before the vehicle struck her.

The sheriff’s office statement says deputies were sent to a report of an unresponsive person on Davis Crossing Road shortly before 4 a.m. Saturday, October 3. The caller stayed at the scene with a vehicle’s hazard lights on, and the deputy saw that vehicle ahead as he approached. The deputy remained there and told a supervisor right away, the office says.

It adds that the crash did not come from a pursuit, and it calls social media claims of a pursuit, or of a deputy leaving the scene, false. A relative of the girl told a local television station that the family was first given a hit-and-run account. “Just tell us the truth,” she said.

The family says they were kept in the dark

She added that the family “could have forgiven that officer” had the sheriff’s office been open about what happened. She also said the sheriff’s office did not contact the girl’s father for days. The only person who reached him in that time, she said, was the coroner. The report says the sheriff was not the responding officer and has said little about the family’s claim.

The sheriff asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol to carry out an independent investigation. A local radio report says sheriff’s detectives are examining what happened before and during the crash, while the patrol handles the crash investigation. The call came from the 5400 block of Davis Crossing Road, and the deputy’s vehicle struck her near the 5300 block, the outlet says. The patrol’s own reconstruction of the collision is ongoing.

A Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesperson told a national news outlet, “I do not have a timeline from the sheriff’s office of what they talked to the family about or when.” Early autopsy findings show no evidence of earlier physical injuries, and her injuries match the impact of the deputy’s vehicle, authorities said. The county coroner pronounced her dead at the scene. Toxicology results and the final autopsy report are pending, and the coroner has said an official cause of death depends on further testing.

The sheriff said the deputy is about 23 and has been with the department roughly three months. Students at her school dressed in pink Monday, and hundreds attended a vigil. In an obituary, her family said she sang in her school choir from fifth grade.