JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The 22-year-old victim of a hit-and-run outside the Jacksonville Landing last week has died, and police say there are still few answers about what happened after a brawl that led to his death.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said it has no new details on the case and wouldn't comment on the status of any persons of interest or witnesses investigators have interviewed.
Fights broke out after a crowd left the country bar Mavericks Rock N' Honky Tonk about 2:15 a.m. Aug. 10, and one man ended up driving over another, whom police identified Friday as Taylor Evans.
Evans was taken off life support at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center and died Tuesday.
"We were just walking, holding hands because we were best friends having fun, and there was a bunch of raucous going on with other groups of people," Evans' friend Alexandra Melendez said. "All the sudden I'm looking for my car, I heard a big screech and slam, and I look over to the right two seconds later and Taylor was laying on the ground in a puddle of blood."
Police said there were several fights at Mavericks that continued into the parking lot a few hundred yards away. That's when witnesses told officers a man hit and then ran over Evans. Evans' friends said he was an innocent bystander.
"Taylor wasn't fighting, Taylor wasn't doing anything wrong," Melendez said. "Taylor was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Witnesses told police the man who hit Evans sped off in his white pickup truck. They said he hit other cars along the way. Someone else chased him, and witnesses say stopped him at gunpoint. Then police caught up and took the man in for questioning.
Meanwhile, JSO investigators are looking for a woman who was battered by a man outside the Landing before the hit-and-run crash. The battery occurred between midnight and 2 a.m. Friday, police said.
Channel 4 crime analyst Ken Jefferson said often times when police release no new information, it can mean they're a lot further along in the investigation than they're letting on.
"They're obviously working some details that they don't want to disclose at this time. Or there's some issues where they don't have witnesses and they don't want to compromise what they have currently," Jefferson said.
JSO has not released the identity of the man questioned, and Jefferson said there's likely a reason police are keeping it a secret.
"It's their role to protect that individual as well as that information," Jefferson said. "Even if that person could end up being a suspect. They've got to do all the things they know about when investigating, and some stuff you may not be aware of. The public may not be aware of what they do and how they do it."
Police said they have not yet made any arrests.
Anyone with any information about this case is asked to call the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office at 904-630-0500 or Crime Stoppers at 866-845-TIPS.