Donald Edward Carroll, a 41-year-old man, was walking along Alabama Highway 77 in Lincoln, Alabama, when the evening turned violent and sudden. Near the intersection of Speedway Boulevard, he was struck by a vehicle, the impact leaving him fatally injured as traffic continued to move through the area. The driver did not stop to help or call for aid, and the scene quickly became a search not just for answers, but for the person who had vanished into the night.
Investigators treated the crash as a hit-and-run from the start, working the roadway where he had been hit and pulling together the first timeline of what happened. Early reporting placed the collision at about 5:10 p.m. on June 12, 2019, and identified Carroll as being from nearby Pell City, tying the loss in Lincoln to a wider community that would feel the absence just as sharply.
About a week later, police announced an arrest. Jessica Lynn Jordan, 28, of Talladega, was taken into custody and booked into the Talladega County Jail. Authorities said she was charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving a death, a charge that centers on the decision made after the collision—driving away instead of stopping as Carroll lay in the roadway. At the time of the announcements, officials reported that bond had not been set.
