Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Report: Suspect in fatal hit-and-run thought she’d hit a dog, not a pedestrian

Amy McDermott

METRO POLICE

Amy McDermott

Admitting to detectives she was behind the wheel of an SUV that struck and killed a pedestrian earlier this month, a hit-and-run suspect said she thought she’d hit a dog, according to Metro Police.

As soon as detectives arrived at an apartment complex, which is about 2,000 feet from the fatal scene, for a second time to speak to Amy McDermott, she exited her unit and began to cry, police said.

“Because I’m guilty,” answered the 36-year-old on Oct. 12 when asked why she was crying, according to her arrest report.

It wasn’t until she saw media reports of a fatal hit-and-run crash that she’d realized she hadn’t struck an animal, she said.

About 9:25 a.m. the previous day, officers and medics responded to St. Louis Avenue and 6th Street where a gravely injured Fadila Popovic, 60, lay, police said. She died at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center.

Popovic and her husband were walking near a curb when she was struck from behind by a Dodge Durango, police said. The two-lane road has space to ride bikes and to park, but it wasn’t immediately clear where exactly Popovic was walking.

Through their initial investigation, detectives had a vehicle description, a dirty, older-model Dodge SUV with frontal damage and parts left behind at the crash scene, police said.

Police in the report did not indicate what led them to the nearby apartment complex, but they there were, seeing a vehicle similar to the one described, according to the report.

A person told them that the owners of the SUV had been working to fix its front hours after the crash, police said. Pieces found on the road appeared to have been missing from the Durango.

Initially, McDermott and the owner of the vehicle gave inconsistent statements on why the vehicle was damaged and where it was at the time of the crash, but detectives returned sometime after and encountered a regretful McDermott with tears in her eyes.

McDermott is being held on a $10,000 bail at the Clark County Detention Center on one count of leaving the scene of an accident, jail logs show. She will next appear in court Oct. 30.