Police Sent Blurry Photos Of A Car Involved In A Hit-And-Run And Somehow Our Readers ID’d It. Now A Suspect Has Been Arrested

It seemed impossible. The few images Detective Zack Currier had of a vehicle involved in a deadly hit-and-run incident were awful. Even Currier, when asked for those images, warned me that they were blurry and dark, and that we likely wouldn’t be able to do much with them. “Just send us everything you have.

Our readers are total nerds,” I responded. Well, it’s been a few weeks now, and somehow you readers pulled it off. You identified the car, and now police have a suspect.

Two weeks ago, the Capitola Police Department out of Capitola, California posted this to its Facebook page:

This prompted a reader, John Paul Jose, to email me asking if I thought Autopians might be able to figure out what the car is.

I called up the Capitola Police Department to see if indeed, the police could use help identifying the make and model of the vehicle (often they’re just asking for folks who know this particular car). I ended up chatting with detective Zack Currier; here’s what he told me (excerpt from the previous article)

“It would be very helpful,” he said, going on to discuss “flock cameras,” which are usually staged in high-traffic areas.  “I can search through Santa Cruz and Watsonville flock cameras,” he told me, “But I’m usually looking for a vehicle that I know what it is,” he said. He knows the suspect’s vehicle exited the highway from Santa Cruz. “The issue is I don’t know what kind of car it is, so when I put it into the search bar, I’m looking at hundreds of SUVs.”

“[Helping us determine] the make and model is huge,” he said. “You let the auto body shops know, you let the public know…Knowing the make and model is huge for us.”

The photos I received were not amazing. We had these two blurry shots of the car going under an overpass:

Facebooker Michael Gutierrez posted in the comments of the Capitola Police Department’s Facebook post this image of the two photos stitched together:

You can see two horizontal-ish looking elements in the taillights, and the headlights look pretty slim. There’s also a shark-fin antenna on the roof, and five-spoke wheels. Otherwise, there’s not a whole lot to go on other than the general SUV-ish shape.

Detective currier also sent me this image of what he suspected was the vehicle’s headlight passing behind a dumpster:

And Currier sent me this video, which showed a really blurry car passing from right to left at about the 18 second mark. I personally didn’t get much from this:

The response from readers was lightning-quick, with the post garnering over 200 comments in short order. After combing through the comments, we published this article on the top guesses:

Those top guesses were:

• Genesis GV80

• 2013 to 2019 Ford Escape

• 2022+ Chevrolet Traverse

• 2011 to 2013 Toyota Highlander

• 2020+ Land Rover Discovery Sport

• 2023+ Honda Pilot

The amount of time and effort that you incredible readers put into trying to identify the car involved in the hit-and-run is truly inspiring. Check this out:

As time went on, one of those six hypotheses in our follow-up post began gaining more and more support from sleuthing readers: the 2023+ Honda Pilot. The support grew in no small part due to reader John Paul Jose’s graphic (Jose was the one who’d sent me the original tip!). Look at this incredible work on JPJ’s part:

I sent detective currier a few emails letting him know what we’d discovered: “Hi Detective Currier, Here are our best guesses on the vehicle’s make and model: https://www.theautopian.com/these-are-your-top-guesses-for-the-car-involved-in-that-fatal-hit-and-run-in-california-lets-try-to-pare-them-down/ -DT” went me first email, quickly followed up with: “The top guess is a 2023 or 2024 Honda Pilot. I’d recommend focusing on those vehicles first, unless you have information suggesting otherwise.”

Here was Currier’s reply:

Hey David, first off, I want to thank you and your community for all the help. We have received such in depth and detailed breakdowns of what the suspect vehicle possibly could be.

John Paul Jose and others have really taken the time out to examine and compare some features to the 23/24 Honda Pilot. We now how some potential leads we are investigating involving that type of vehicle.

So far, the Honda Pilot appears to be the best match to me and the other investigators on this case.

Thank you all again for the help and hope you all enjoy the holidays!

Hey David,

An update is we had made an arrest for this case last friday and the vehicle associated was proven to be a 2023 black Honda Pilot. Like I said before, I would like to thank you and your community for all the input and dedication.