Man arrested in hit-and-run crash that injured cyclist

It took witnesses with attention to detail, good detective work and a little luck, but Thursday evening Salt Lake County sheriff's deputies arrested the man they say hit a bicyclist on Wasatch Boulevard last week and left him on the side of the road.

Nicholas T. Murdock, 28, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of leaving the scene of an accident with injuries and obstruction.

The arrest was made exactly one week after the accident occurred. But the sheriff's office said there wouldn't have been an arrest if not for the cooperation of several witnesses.

"One of the witnesses was a BMW aficionado and swore that the car was a BMW 335 I," Salt Lake County sheriff's Lt. Don Hutson said. "Another said the car had an older license plate; another said the registration sticker was red, which tells us what month the car was registered; and then witnesses also gave us the description of the driver."

Hutson said with the information they had, detectives were able to sufficiently narrow down the number of registered BMWs in Salt Lake to look into specific owners.

Once investigators had addresses to look at, they used Google Earth to try to get more information on where those addresses are relative to where the hit-and-run occurred.

"The detectives ended up looking up his address on Google Earth and there it was — in the Google Earth satellite picture the BMW was parked at the house," Hutson said.

The sheriff's office then made contact with relatives and then eventually made contact with Murdock, who had been driving a relative's car since the accident, Hutson said.

"We were then able to determine that his car was hidden in a relative's garage and it still has all the damage from the accident," Hutson said.

The 57-year-old bicyclist who was hit by the car remains in the hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries, Hutson said.

The sheriff's office has identified the woman who was in the car with Murdock, and deputies are still looking into the possibility of filing charges against her.

Murdock told deputies that he fled the scene because he was scared, Hutson said.

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