A 17-year-old has been charged in a deadly hit-and-run crash that went without an arrest for nearly two months.
In an update on Monday morning, Harris County Precinct 4 announced that Destin Quintero, 17, has been arrested and charged with failure to stop and render aid — accident involving death.
He was arrested when deputies conducted a search warrant at a residence, Pct. 4 said on Monday. Court records show he has been released from jail on a $50,000 bond.
Deputies said the suspect left his cellphone in a stolen Jeep Grand Cherokee before he fled the scene, and that’s how investigators were able to track him down.
The crash happened on Nov. 19 near the intersection of Cypress Rosehill Road and Huffmeister, deputies said. The driver was going the wrong way in a stolen Jeep when he hit 20-year-old Caleb Rickenbacher.
Investigators said Rickenbacher and his girlfriend were coming back from getting food that morning. Authorities said Rickenbacher noticed the Jeep Grand Cherokee in his lane, and he swerved so that his girlfriend wouldn’t take the impact of the hit. Rickenbacher was killed in the crash, and his girlfriend was seriously injured.
Data from the stolen Jeep showed it was traveling 91 mph at 100% accelerator, court documents stated. The driver’s seat reportedly did not have the seatbelt buckled 0.10 seconds before the collision.
According to court documents, the Jeep was stolen from a Holiday Inn located near Grand Parkway and Holzwarth Road in the Spring Branch area the night before the crash. The owner of the Jeep said a handgun was also stolen from the vehicle.
The suspect reportedly broke into several other vehicles in the parking lot that night. At least six other vehicle burglaries were reported, documents state.
After the crash, witnesses reported seeing a Black male wearing a black shirt with a black backpack running away from the scene. He reportedly scaled a brick wall into the nearby Sydney Harbour subdivision. Surveillance video nearby showed the suspect running down the sidewalk with a backpack on, Pct. 4 said.
On Nov. 22, deputies were called to a street within the Sydney Harbour subdivision after a resident found a black backpack floating in the water on a canal, according to court documents. Inside the backpack, investigators found a Chrysler/Jeep key fob, binoculars, small hammer, black flashlight, black face mask, gloves and other burglary tools. Deputies also reportedly found a handgun that matched the description of the one stolen from the Jeep.