DPS investigating Cobb crash

On a cold and quiet Tuesday night, Cobb residents were jolted awake with a bang.

Someone was driving on Country Club Road heading toward South Road and hit a parked car, dragging it into a light pole, according to the Department of Public Safety.

The car responsible for the crash was abandoned and still running by the time the police arrived, witnesses said.

DPS is still investigating the hit-and-run that happened around 1:26 a.m. Wednesday morning.

DPS spokesman Randy Young said the driver who caused the crash fled the scene.

“We do know the owner of that car, however, and we are following some leads, and it is under investigation,” Young said.

Cobb resident Cain Twyman, who is also a reporter for The Daily Tar Heel, said she owns the car that was hit. The car is registered under her sister Nia Twyman, but Cain Twyman said she was using the car at school.

Cain Twyman said she and her sister had bought the used car just this year.

But Young said the accident report listed the owner of the car that was hit as Yasco Salim.

Salim was at the scene but claimed he was just a bystander. Salim, who was visiting a friend, said he was walking down Country Club Road when the accident happened.

“That was the craziest shit I ever saw,” Salim said. “I was walking by here and I heard ‘boom,’ and I looked and thought the guy in the car was hurt. I ran up to the car, and I was like ‘Dude are you OK?’ and he was like, ‘I’m fine,’ and then he started running.”

Young said the accident caused $3,000 worth of damages to the parked car and $7,000 to the car that caused the accident, which was a 2003 Nissan.

“So we don’t have anything more to release on that, but we are locating and making contact with the owner,” Young said of the driver of the car who caused the accident.

The crash knocked out a couple street lights, residents said, which made it difficult to see much of anything.

“It sounded like an explosion,” Cobb resident Mason Boyles said. “I was in bed and I looked out the window and saw what looked like lightning, but then there was a big sound and I guess the explosion was that of the street light.”

Boyles said he didn’t see anyone running away from the scene.

Soren Watson and Valerie Davis, who were both in Cobb, were the first to come outside to see the accident and call 911.

Davis added that she saw a half-eaten burrito in the driver’s seat of the abandoned car.

“I heard a large crash from my room, and I looked out the window,” Watson said. “I saw a blinking red light and what looked like two cars, and then I saw someone jogging in that direction.”

Junior Ashley Creese also saw the accident and said what Salim and Watson recalled was true.

“I saw the guy running away,” Creese said.

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