Hit-run death still unsolved

Police and the family of a renowned entomologist killed by a hit-and-run driver are hoping for a Christmas miracle.

Someone must have seen the crash. Someone must have seen 80-year-old Robert Elbel standing in the darkness of Highland Drive when a vehicle bucked the retired university professor into the air during rush hour and killed him. Someone must have seen the car speeding away.

Beyond that, his children say, there is no way a driver could hit him and not know it.

But it has been one year since the crash killed the man crossing Highland Drive after getting off the bus, and his death remains one of a few unresolved Utah slayings from 2005.

It is also the only unsolved pedestrian fatality in Deputy Mike Schoenfeld's five-year career as an investigator for the Salt Lake County Sheriff Department's major accident team. Despite a $10,000 reward, a meager trickle of tips to police have yielded nothing.

"Our chances of solving this now are so low," Schoenfeld said Thursday. "We're going to need a Christmas miracle."

After a year of grief and loss, Elbel's three children would like answers to their questions.

"I'm not out for vengeance," said son Karl Elbel, 36. "I don't want the person to go to jail. I don't want to press charges. I just would like to know what happened."

The children also want closure for their mother, Lyda, who was married to Elbel for 45 years and has suffered medical troubles.

"We would just like some end to the story," said Ruth Vayo, 41, Elbel's daughter. "Someone hit my dad and drove away and left him to die in the road. Whether it was an accident or not, the person just should have stopped. Someone should answer for this."

But the investigation has been difficult from the beginning.

Elbel, who lived in East Millcreek, was struck and killed about 6 p.m. Dec. 1, 2005, just after stepping off the bus at 3500 South and Highland Drive. He lived for a few minutes, but he died from the injuries before he could be loaded into a Life Flight helicopter that landed in a nearby parking lot.

Although investigators scoured the area, not one bit of physical evidence was found that dark December night one year ago — not a broken headlight, not a tire mark, not a single paint chip.

"Nothing," Schoenfeld said. "We had absolutely nothing."