Two men helping change a tire on I-20 early Wednesday were the victims of a hit-and-run driver, DeKalb County police said, leaving one of them dead and the other critically injured.
The accident killed Kleeon Cadogan, 29, and left Devon Witter of Covington in critical condition at Grady Memorial Hospital, police said.
Jodi DaCosta of Stone Mountain had gotten a flat on her 1995 Nissan Maxima and called her friends Cadogan and Witter to help her, police said. DaCosta was sitting in her car when the accident happened and was not injured.
Andrew James Spencer, 29, of East Point was arrested and booked into the DeKalb County Jail, charged with felony homicide by vehicle, felony hit-and-run and a felony lane violation.
Betty Spencer, mother of the accused driver, said she believes her son, who works as a manager at a Stonecrest Mall restaurant, nodded off while driving home in his Dodge Ram pickup truck about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday near Panola Road.
“He fell asleep — he wasn’t drunk, he doesn’t do drugs,” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He is a good guy, a straight guy. He just works, that’s it.”
But Lee Hardeman, the motorist who tailed Spencer and got him to pull over so police could arrest him, wasn’t so sure that Spencer didn’t try and run away.
“I asked him why he didn’t stop back there after he ran over them folks and he just looked at me,” Hardeman said. “I think he was going to keep going, but he found out I was following him and he decided to go ahead and just pull over.”
Hardeman said he saw the accident and then pursued Spencer. “He just ran the people over,” he told Channel 2 Action News. “I didn’t want the guy to get away.”
He said Spencer’s Dodge pickup “drifted” from the second lane to the shoulder lane and then into the people.
“It kind of freaked me out,” Hardeman said. “I got on the phone and called 911 and followed the guy … I was blowing my horn and I had my flashers on, and I let him know that I was right there on him,” he said.
After pulling onto the shoulder of the highway, Spencer got out of his truck and they talked, Hardeman said.
Hardeman, who installs sprinkler systems, said he was on his way from his Conyers home to a work site in Suwanee, and was behind Spencer for a while before the accident.
“He stayed in the same lane and drove nice, up until where the people were at,” he said. “Just right there, he drifted from the second lane to the first lane and ran over them people.”
Betty Spencer said she thought Hardeman’s description supported her belief that her son had fallen asleep at the wheel.
“I am so so sorry for the families of the people who were hurt and died,” she added. “I’ve cried more about that than my baby being in jail. I am so sorry.”
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