A suspect has been finally charged 34 years after a fatal hit-and-run in North Carolina after DNA testing on a marijuana cigarette. Charlotte –Mecklenburg Police Department announced that Herbert Stanback, 68, had been charged with felony hit-and-run in the death of 52-year-old Ruth Buchanan on 29 December 1989. Buchanan had just left a department store with a friend in Charlotte’s Uptown neighborhood around 4pm.
When the pair crossed a busy intersection, Buchanan was hit by a dark-colored vehicle after the car failed to stop at a red light. The driver did not stop to render aid and fled the scene, police said in a news release . The woman’s body landed on the opposite side of the intersection.
Buchanan was then transported to Charlotte Memorial Hospital with serious injuries, which she succumbed to the following day. Several witnesses were able to confirm the vehicle’s description and provided the vehicle tag number for the car that hit Buchanan. Detectives who worked the case that year determined that the car had a stolen tag from a Mercedes Benz and the luxury vehicle was not tied to the incident.
On January 1, 1990, officials responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle at a Comfort Inn. The tag on the car matched the description of the vehicle that struck Buchanan, a 1990 Mitsubishi Galant. Officials retrieved personal items from inside the car, including what they believed to be a marijuana joint.
However, the case sat open for 32 years. In 2022, Sergeant Gavi.