How Did a Fla. Woman End Up Dead on the Highway Hours After a First Date? Police Investigate
Jennifer St. Clair headed out last Friday for a first date with a man she met online. She told her parents where she was going and said her good-byes. But she never returned home.
“They’re devastated,” says Todd Falzone, an attorney representing St. Clair’s relatives, who are now planning her funeral.
St. Clair, 33, was picked up Friday from her Ft. Lauderdale home by an unidentified man on a motorcycle. They were joined by two other couples on separate motorcycles and headed to Downtown Delray Beach, a stretch of road lined with upscale boutiques, restaurants and bars.
By 2 a.m. Saturday, Florida Highway Patrol officers were responding to a deadly scene on Interstate 95: the body of a pedestrian was laying on the road after being struck multiple times by different cars.
It was St. Clair.
She was pronounced dead at the scene, the highway patrol said in a news release. But how she “ended up within the roadway is still under investigation.”
“Her family doesn’t know what happened,” Falzone tells PEOPLE. “They just know she was struck by many vehicles.”
One of the drivers who said he struck St. Clair quickly pulled over and waited for help to arrive. The driver didn’t identify himself but spoke to a news camera on the scene, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
“Laying across the road was what looked to be a body, and I couldn’t react in time and I ran it over,” he said. “I came to a stop as fast as I could.”
The man said he called 911 — and spoke with a motorcyclist who was parked in the emergency lane.
“I opened the door and asked, ‘Was that a person laying in the road?’ ” he recalled. “And he said, ‘Yes, she’s dead.’ ”
The driver told local news that the motorcyclist rode off. Falzone says he received similar information from the highway patrol.
“He [St. Clair’s date] pulled over to the median and did nothing to help her,” he says. “The motorcyclist was fully aware of what was going on and left.”
The witness said he was shocked while he waited for help to arrive.
“I can’t believe people can run over a body in the road and not stop,” he told the Sun-Sentinel.
Officials from the Florida Highway Patrol say the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information can call Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.
The family’s attorney encourages anyone with information to call his law firm Kelley Uustal at 954-587-8423.
