Empty vehicle found at hit-and-run scene. Then came a gruesome discovery, NC cops say

A driver mysteriously disappeared from a hit-and-run scene — then came a gruesome discovery, officials said.

Days after the crash, the missing North Carolina driver was found dead down a “steep embankment.” He was thrown from his vehicle before it continued moving, causing the hit-and-run Jan. 6, according to the High Point Police Department.

Officers were called to Interstate 74 and found a vehicle they believed was involved in the hit-and-run. But the vehicle was empty, sparking a search for the person who had been behind the wheel, police wrote in a news release.

Police identified the driver, and a K-9 search led officers near his home. But they said the man was nowhere to be found.

Then on Jan. 8, the driver’s family reported him missing. Two days later, officers continued looking for the man on a lake near his neighborhood.

“Later that day, an individual who was part of a private search party searched the woods around the crash site and located a body at the bottom of a steep embankment, about 25 feet down,” police wrote. “The man had a substantial head injury and was pronounced dead.”

The man was identified as the driver, 33-year-old Eric L. Morrison Jr. of High Point.

Officers believe Morrison was on the interstate when he “lost control coming up the exit ramp and ran off the side of the road.” He was thrown from the vehicle and hit a guardrail, “killing him instantly,” officials said.

“His body was found 75 feet away from where he hit the guardrail,” police wrote. “His vehicle continued to travel about 250 feet up the road, where it hit another vehicle at the top of the ramp.”

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