Student drank beer at an FAU football tailgate. Now he's accused in a 92-year-old man's death
BOCA RATON — A 21-year-old Boca Raton man is facing two charges connected to a hit-and-run crash that killed a 92-year-old man last October.
Boca Raton police took Genesis James Gray into custody March 30 on charges of vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a crash involving death. Police allege he struck the man, who died two weeks after suffering his injury, on Oct. 15 near Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital.
City police did not disclose the deceased man's name, citing a 2018 state constitutional amendment that gives crime victims or their families the right to withhold their names from public documents.
During a March 31 hearing at the Palm Beach County Jail, County Judge Ted Booras ordered that Gray be held on $50,000 bail and placed on in-house arrest upon his release.
Booras also ordered Gray to refrain from driving and to have no contact with the deceased man's family. An attempt to reach the attorney listed as Gray's representative was not immediately successful.
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The crash occurred shortly before 8 p.m. on the 1000 block of Northwest Seventh Street, west of the hospital.
A police officer working a special assignment during a Florida Atlantic University football game that evening went to the scene. A witness told the officer about seeing an older pedestrian lying in the roadway bleeding severely from his left leg. Boca Raton Fire Rescue medics drove the man to the trauma center at Delray Medical Center.
Investigators spoke with the man after he had undergone multiple surgeries. He said he had driven to a nearby Publix store to buy groceries, but his car would not start when he prepared to leave.
He decided to walk home instead.
Boca Raton driver denied being in crash on night of FAU football game
The man reported feeling lightheaded as he walked and said he fell on a couple of occasions. After the first time, two unknown passersby stopped and helped him to his feet. The man said he fainted again a short time later, falling in the street in front of a home on Northwest Seventh.
Investigators reported that the man told them he saw a vehicle approaching and raised his hand to get the driver's attention. The driver swerved and continued west. The vehicle returned about two minutes later, this time traveling east. It swerved and ran over the elderly man's legs, police said.
Officers identified the vehicle through surveillance-camera video and tracked it to a home on Northwest Ninth Court, less than a mile from the crash scene.
Speaking to officers in December, Gray admitted to driving the vehicle on the night in question and told officers he drank four beers earlier that evening while tailgating at the FAU game, a 17-14 victory over Rice University, the report said.
Gray, who the police report indicates was an FAU student at that time, denied being involved in a crash and said he did not remember hitting anyone.
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Boca police arrest FAU student hit-and-run crash that killed man, 92
