A bicyclist and a pedestrian were killed in separate hit-and-run crashes, and a driver was killed in a single-vehicle crash early Saturday in Polk County.
According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, 27-year-old Hector Chavez was found dead around 2:17 a.m. in the westbound lanes of U.S. 92 at Payne Street in Auburndale. Investigators said it appears Chavez was riding his bicycle when he was struck by a vehicle and then possibly other vehicles.
"We feel really horrible," said Chavez's sister Maximina Niz. "Because he’s not like an animal, to just leave it there and nobody even tried to help him or anything."
No information about the vehicle or vehicles suspected in the crash has been released.
Around 5 a.m., the sheriff's office received a call reporting a crash on Country Road 542 West near Jimmy Lee Road in Winter Haven. First responders found a 1998 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck upside down, with a utility pole snapped in half and power lines on the truck.
The driver, later identified as 21-year-old Joshua Mims, was trapped and appeared deceased, deputies said. Firefighters extricated him and tried life-saving measures, but Mims was declared dead at the scene.
Investigators said it appeared that Mims had been heading west on CR 542, ran off the road, over-corrected and hit a culvert. The truck crashed into the power poll and rolled onto its roof.
Then. around 6:40 a.m., a motorist reported seeing a woman laying next to Clubhouse Road in Lakeland, near Tillery Road. Deputies found the woman dead and said she had likely been there for at least a few hours.
Investigators believe the woman, believed to have moved to the area recently from Georgia, was struck by a 2007-2012 Nissan car, possibly an Altima, that will have front-end and mirror damage on the passenger side. The car would have been traveling east on Clubhouse Drive when it struck her, they said.
Deputies are asking that anyone with information about either hit-and-run crash call the sheriff's office at 863-298-6200.