New reports on Lytle crash

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Posted 11:16 PM 8/29/2012 : Police reports reveal more about Nogales firefighter's hit-and-run death

TUCSON - Police reports show new information in the hit-and-run death of Nogales firefighter, Sterling Lytle.

On June 28, dispatchers sent an officer to a 911 call where "a male caller was heard yelling over the phone, "No!" over and over."

Lytle was the passenger in his friend's car. They pulled over in a parking lot near Pima Road and Alvernon Way. An orange truck hit Lytle and the door of his friend's car.

When the first officer arrived he saw Lytle's friend kneeling over Lytle, according to the report.

The officer wrote, "When he began to speak to me I could tell he had been drinking intoxicating beverages from the odor of intoxicants on his breath and the confused, slurred way about his speech."

Lytle's friend had "difficulty in remembering the facts and order of this incident," according to a police report.

"He did not have any recollection of cutting anybody off or driving in a manner that would make anybody upset," an officer wrote in a report.

Lytle's friend said the man yelled a profanity at them in Spanish before hitting Lytle.

Lytle's friend first said they were leaving the Cactus Moon and headed toward Starr Pass. Then he said they were leaving Starr Pass headed toward a friend's house. He also mentioned spending time at Rusty's bar. He said he did not know where he was going in Tucson, according to the report.

Police eventually identified the driver of the vehicle as Jesus Zepeda.

Within a couple days of the incident, Zepeda left his job, according to a report.

He asked a friend to store his truck which had obvious damage, according to a report.

When Zepeda's friend's wife talked to police, she said "her husband advised her that Zepeda's truck broke down and he was going to store it at the home until he could pick it up or fix it."

The truck was covered and the home was in a secluded area, according to the report. The friends gave the information to police when they figured out what was going on.

Zepeda turned himself in at the Pima County Jail.

Police did not perform a DUI investigation because they never saw Lytle's friend driving intoxicated.