The Charlotte Observer
A marijuana joint preserved for 34 years in a police evidence room led to the arrest of a 68-year-old man in the 1989 hit-and-run death of a shopper in uptown Charlotte, police said Friday. Ruth Buchanan and a friend had just left a department store when a driver ran a red light and hit the 52-year-old in a crosswalk on North Tryon Street at Fifth Street, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Sgt. Gavin Jackson said in a police video that detailed the investigation.
Buchanan died the next day at a hospital. Buchanan lived in Forest City and was shopping for clothes in uptown for a New Year’s trip to Florida, The Charlotte Observer reported at the time. “Fifteen minutes after arriving, she lay dying on busy North Tryon Street — battered by a driver who ran a red light at 45 mph and never stopped,” the Observer reported. Witnesses described the car to police and gave officers the license plate number, according to a police news release on Friday.
The car was stolen from a Charlotte auto dealership, Jackson said. But a lack of evidence kept the case unsolved for more than three decades. CAR RECOVERED AT CHARLOTTE HOTEL On Jan. 1, 1990, officers responded to a call of a suspicious car at a Comfort Inn in the 4400 block of South Tryon Street, Jackson said. Police found a dark blue 1990 Mitsubishi Galant with the stolen tag identified by witnesses in the hit and run. Officers recovered a marijuana joint and other evidence from the car. Yet, “due to a lack of further evidence,” the case remained opened for 32 years, police said.
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