Search Continues for Driver

March 27, 1995

By MISTIQUE MACOMBER

Tribune Staff Writer

WIS. RAPIDS – Wood County authorities continue to search for a motorist who struck and killed an 11-year-old town of Hansen girl Friday and fled the scene.

Deidre Week was riding her bicycle north on County HH just north of Vesper at about 6:45 p.m. Friday when a northbound car hit her. She was a short distance from home.

Thomas Reichert, an investigator with the Wood County Sheriff’s Department, said the accident remains under investigation today as investigators continue to follow leads on suspects and suspicious vehicles.

The department is issuing a release that will be distributed to businesses and automotive repair shops detailing what the department is looking for in the suspect vehicle, he said.

The release states the suspect “vehicle may have front end damage, possibly concentrated on the passenger side. This damage may include a single, approximately eight-inch dent on the hood or damage to the under bumper area or windshield/roof post.

“The color of the vehicle has not definitely been determined. Individuals have reported both silver and burgundy vehicles in the area. Possible makes are Chevrolet Cavalier and Olds Cutlass. It is stressed that no color or make has definitely been identified in this case,” the release states.

Initially the vehicle was described as a light-colored vehicle, but Reichert said there have been some conflicting reports of the vehicle being burgundy in color. He said he theorizes the discrepancies in color description are due to the lighting at the time of the accident.

“It changes a person’s perception of color,” he said. Investigators looked at a number of cars at dusk on Sunday to determine color and found brown cars can look light in color, like silver.

However, witnesses agree the suspect vehicle was a small or mid-sized vehicle and not a large vehicle or truck, Reichert said.