From The New York Shitty Inbox: Witnesses/Help Wanted

Yours truly has received all manner and variety of correspondence over the years. Some are humorous. Some downright belligerent. But the following will unfortunately be the most memorable. A fellow hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Larry, writes (in an email entitled “August 2nd blog and photo of pedestrian struck on humboldt and metropolitan“):

Dear Miss Heather,

Hopefully you can help??

My wife, Heather along with myself and our 2 children were very close with the individual that was struck by the livery car that fateful night.(August 1st, 2012) The victim of this horrible hit and run, was a young man from our hometown of East Grand Rapids, Michigan.

His name was Leighton Parnham. He was only 19 years old and as a result of this (my opinion) vehicular homicide, passed away at Bellvue Hospital on August 7th 2012. If you would like to learn about this fun loving young man, visit this link:

http://obits.mlive.com/obituaries/grandrapids/obituary.aspx?pid=159143187

or
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/08/east_grand_rapids_high_grad_ki.html

The family is destroyed.

I am also a retired police officer and evidence technician from the suburbs of Chicago.
It seems the police have no interest in this homicide, which according to NY VTL section 10, leaving the scene of a traffic accident, resulting in death, is a class D felony.

We are tying to obtain the truth into what happened and any help you can provide would be great. i.e. person T, who originally posted this and what seems is a photo from their window overlooking the scene, any witnesses from Legion Bar that night…

I understand the driver of the livery car left the scene and was stopped by police with a smashed windshield and front end damage, but, was not arrested or even ticketed…

I have spent a significant amount of time today corresponding with Larry and Heather. They, in turn, have been corresponding with Leighton’s father (who, you can imagine, is devastated). The latter has given me permission to get the word out about this— one of many “accidents” hereabouts involving livery cabs, I’ll add— in the hope someone who witnessed this “hit and run” will step forward and speak up. To Heather (Larry’s wife) via email at: H_shortt (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Losing a child is quite frankly beyond my comprehension. I cannot imagine the pain Leighton’s family and friends have experienced and are presently experiencing. Nonetheless, we are in a position to help them get some semblance of “closure”. Finding out what actually what happened is a vital first step. Please help spread the word, north Brooklynites. Thanks.

Photo Credit: Screencap of Leighton Parnham comes via MLive.