New charges have been brought against a motorcyclist accused of hitting a couple who were crossing a street in Falmouth, Massachusetts, in August and driving off, authorities said.
David Eldredge Jr., 33, who turned himself in a week after the Aug. 14 crash, has been indicted by a Barnstable County grand jury on charges including assault and battery, leaving the scene of an accident and driving on a suspended license, the Cape & Islands District Attorney said in a statement.
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The grand jury indictment moves the case from district court to superior court. Prosecutors didn't say when he was due to appear in Barnstable Superior Court on the new charges; it wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney who could speak to the charges.
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Falmouth police have said Eldredge was driving the motorcycle that struck 65-year-old David Fitch and 60-year-old Sandra Fitch on Main Street in a crosswalk in front of the Estia Restaurant on the evening of Aug. 14. Both were hospitalized as a result of the crash.
Eldgredge was able to push his vehicle off the road and appeared to be waiting for emergency personnel to arrive, according to police. But before officers got to the scene, he allegedly fled on foot into a wooded area surrounding Siders Pond behind Falmouth Town Hall. A search of the area with the assistance of a police K9 unit was unsuccessful.
"He kind of stood there quietly and didn’t say a word to anyone there and then it wasn’t till about 10 mins later when police showed up that we noticed he kinda just slipped away and fled the scene,” said Demetri Markantonis, the general manager at Estia Restaurant.
Markantonis said he stayed with the couple waiting for police to arrive and that they seemed “responsive but uncomfortable.”
David Fitch spoke to NBC10 Boston from his hospital bed in Boston after the crash, recalling that he and his wife were out celebrating his 65th birthday and walking in a crosswalk when the motorcyclist accelerated toward them.
"I fell down," he said. "At that point I could not see where Sandy was, but then I within a few seconds I could hear her crying and she was right up against me. We were both laying on the ground."
Sandy Fitch remained on life support at Saint Luke's Hospital in New Bedford days after the crash, Fitch said in the interview.
