This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
An El Salvador man wanted in a fatal hit-and-run accident in Taylorsville turned himself over to police and was arrested and booked into Salt Lake County Jail early Tuesday.
Samuel I. Ramos, 26, called police to surrender within hours of when the family of the early Monday morning accident victim, 22-year-old Alexander Atkin, held a Monday candlelight vigil and asked the driver to come forward.
"He called police dispatch about 8 p.m. Monday and said he wanted to turn himself in for the hit-and-run that was on TV. Our investigators then picked him up at his home," said Taylorsville Police Sgt. Cory Snodgrass.
About 2 a.m. Monday, a passer-by found Atkin's body near a crosswalk at 4835 S., 2700 West. Police placed the time of the accident within a four-hour window beginning about 10 p.m. Sunday.
The vigil, held at the scene of the accident, was aired by television news and seen by members of Ramos' family. It was at the urging of his relatives that Ramos then called police, Snodgrass said.
Ramos, also known as Samuel Isal García-Ramos and Samuel Isaac Ramos, was being held Tuesday without bail on the third-degree felony count of leaving the scene of an accident involving death, jail records showed.
Snodgrass said that while the fatality remained under investigation, there were no preliminary indications of drugs or alcohol being factors in the accident.
"The information we have was that he was on his way home from work when he hit [Atkin]," Snodgrass said. "We're still looking into it."
A probable cause statement filed with 3rd District Court Tuesday noted that Ramos told police he knew he had "struck an object on the roadway and believed it was the victim in the case," but that he later specifically provided a "confession to having struck the victim."
Police also seized the vehicle believed involved in the hit-and-run.