A update to a previously confusing case …
Huntley police and firefighter/paramedics responded about 4:50 AM Friday to a report of a rollover crash with a fire at Jim Dhamer Drive and Route 47 Huntley, Il. Police and firefighter/paramedics arrived on scene to discover one person without a pulse and an SUV on its side at the intersection. Observers at the scene could see that a blue tarp covered the rear tailgate area of the SUV. A prolonged accident investigation was just getting underway early Friday morning. The driver was dead at the scene in a gruesome crash.
PHOTOS: WGN Helicopter Fatal Rollover Crash at Route 47 and Freeman Road Near Huntley Outlet Center
Police would soon realize that the motorist dead at the scene was just involved in his second crash overnight.
The SUV received serious front-end damage, but another vehicle — a 2003 Saturn with serious front-end damage — was located off of Freeman Road near Factory Shops Boulevard about one-half mile east of the fatal crash. The 2003 Saturn had struck a traffic signal and careened off the road. That vehicle was apparently driven by the same driver that was killed at Jim Dhamer Drive and Route 47. Jim Dhamer Drive runs west of the intersection with Route 47; Freeman Road runs east of the intersection toward the entrance for Huntley Outlet Center.
Huntley Police Department reported early Friday that the driver of the 2002 Honda CR-V was going west on Freeman Road about 4:49 a.m. when the vehicle went out of control. Police also said that the vehicle hit a light standard.
An initial police news release reported no second vehicle was involved in the crash, despite the fact that the 2003 Saturn was located about one-half mile east of the crash scene with apparent front-end damage. Police were searching for the driver of the first vehicle — the Saturn — after checking the license and registration of the vehicle. Police were also searching the outlet mall area to see if the person was wandering the parking lot injured, or hiding there. As police worked to solve the puzzle of the two crashes one-half mile apart, they learned that both vehicles were registered to the same address. Then they learned that the dead man in the Honda CR-V crash — identified as David Flight — had the keys for both crashed vehicles. He lived at the registered address of both vehicles, but did not own either vehicle. The vehicles’ owners reported that the keys to both vehicles were missing. It turned out the driver of the crashed sedan — the 2003 Saturn — was also the dead driver of the crashed Honda CR-V.
Now police think that while they were investigating the Saturn crash, the driver they had been seeking (who turned out to be David Flight) might have driven right by them in the second vehicle — the Honda CR-V — just before the fatal one-vehicle crash involving the Honda CR-V.
Police are considering that both high-speed collisions might have been suicide attempts. Toxicology tests have also been ordered on the body.
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