A Portland man was sentenced to three years of probation this week after being convicted in a deadly February hit-and-run.
Antonio Giuseppe Panciarelli, 47, was arrested in March after the passenger in his car on the night of the hit-and-run reported him to police.
Cedar C. Markey-Towler died February 25 after two vehicles hit him while he was walking on the south side of the 11400 block of Southeast Foster Road.
An investigation found that Panciarelli’s was the first car to hit Markey-Towler and that Panciarelli then fled the scene. Another car, a silver SUV, also hit Markey-Towler, who died within minutes of arriving at a hospital that night, prosecutors wrote in a probable-cause affidavit. Police have not been able to identify the second driver, who also left the scene.
Because Markey-Towler was hit by two cars, investigators were unable to determine which driver actually caused his death, said Elisabeth Shepard, a spokesperson for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
Panciarelli pled guilty to failure to perform the duties of a driver to a seriously injured person.
“There was not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to say that Panciarelli was the person who fatally struck the victim,” Shepard told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “In a situation like that, we can’t prove it.”
Prosecutors also determined they could not prove Panciarelli’s negligence as a driver, aside from his fleeing the scene, so it wasn’t a part of the charging decision, Shepard said. The pedestrian wasn’t at a crosswalk or stoplight, and lack of visibility was a factor. A witness told police that Markey-Towler was “very difficult to see,” according to court documents.
A few days after the crash, a man called a tips hotline after seeing news reports of the hit-and-run, deputy district attorney Brad Kalbaugh wrote in the probable-cause affidavit. The man told police he was in the front passenger seat of the first car when it struck Markey-Towler. He said he had asked Panciarelli to slow down just before the collision. The man said he heard a loud crash and that it was “obvious” the vehicle had hit a person, according to the court document.
The man said he called police because it “was the moral thing to do,” according to the affidavit. He also told police that Panciarelli worked at a Shell station near the crash site, which was where officers arrested him March 1.
The sentencing comes amidst a spate of hit-and-run cases in the area.
A Portland man is facing second-degree murder and attempt to commit murder, among other charges, after a fatal hit-and-run on Southeast 82nd Avenue, and another is facing manslaughter charges after a hit-and-run left an E-bike rider dead in Northeast Portland.
2021 was a record-breaking year for traffic fatalities in Portland, with 63 people killed, including 27 pedestrians.
–Savannah Eadens; seadens@oregonian.com; 503-221-6651; @savannaheadens
