MAN INDICTED FOR AGGRAVATED VEHICULAR HOMICIDE IN HIT-AND-RUN DEATH OF FEMALE JOGGER IN WESTERVILLE

Posted on 10/23/2017

Defendant: Jonathan Barrett Coffman

Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said, “This female victim was on her morning training run when she was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.”  Prosecutor Ron O’Brien announced today that the Franklin County Grand Jury has returned an indictment against Jonathan Barrett Coffman, age 32, for one count of Aggravated Vehicular Homicide (F-2), one count of Aggravated Vehicular Homicide (F-3), one count of Failure to Stop After Accident (F-3), and one count of Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol, a Drug of Abuse or a Combination of Them (M-1), for a total of four counts.  On the morning of July 31^st, 2017, Coffman was on his way to work at JP Morgan Chase Bank located at 800 Brooksedge Boulevard in Westerville.  The indictment alleges that Coffman was driving his vehicle while impaired by several drugs, swerved off the road striking female jogger Linda J. Evans, age 68, stopped to observe the damage to his vehicle, and fled the scene shortly thereafter.  “Approximately an hour later, a woman called the Westerville Police and reported seeing a body in the brush of the treeline along the west side of Park Meadow Road north of Brooksedge Boulevard,” O’Brien stated.  Linda Evans was pronounced dead at the scene.  “Blood samples taken from Coffman’s car matched the DNA of the victim,” O’Brien stated.  Arraignment for Coffman should be set for later in the week in courtroom 2B at 345 S. High Street in downtown Columbus.