A West Valley police car is parked in West Valley City on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020. West Valley City police say three juveniles are in custody following a shooting at Valley Fair Mall on Monday, May 8, 2023. A man, roughly 30 years old, suffered a non-life-threatening injury. (Kristin Murphy/Deseret News)
SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah — West Valley police officers responded to a fatal hit-and-run Monday evening. Police have now named Jose Julian Marin Flores, 21, as the lead suspect.
According to a statement from the Salt Lake County DA’s Office, on Monday, Nov. 14, the incident occurred in the area of 3245 S. 7200 W. in Salt Lake County. No suspect was identified at the time of the incident.
On Thursday, Nov. 17, police received a call from an unidentified “concerned citizen” saying Flores had called him on the night of the hit-and-run. According to the statement, Flores was asking for assistance towing his girlfriend’s truck from a Salt Lake County residence.
Upon his arrival to the residence, the citizen noticed the truck had front-end damage, which Flores attributed to hitting a deer and vandalism from the previous night.
Following this, the citizen began to take photos of the truck, which Flores told him to stop, the statement said. The citizen assisted Flores in transporting the truck to a residence in the Ballpark area of Salt Lake City. According to the statement, the citizen said he did not know anything was wrong until seeing a news story the following day.
The citizen then contacted Flores, questioning him further on the damage to the truck.
Flores told the citizen that his girlfriend had been driving the truck and dropped it off at the Salt Lake County residence, where someone had vandalized it.
According to the statement, the citizen found this story to be suspicious, so he reached out to a mutual friend. The mutual friend told him that Flores and his girlfriend were attempting to go to Mexico.
According to the statement, Flores turned himself into police later in the day on Nov. 17.
Detective Hagemann with the West Valley Police Department reportedly received a call from someone identifying himself as Flores. He then told the detective, “he wanted to turn himself in for what he had done,” according to the statement.
Following this, Flores confessed to driving his girlfriends truck the night of incident and hitting Lewis.