Detectives investigating the hit-and-run of a jogger in Liberty Township Monday, June 11, have received a number of tips but so far none of them has panned out, the Porter County Sheriff’s Police said.

So folks should continue to be on the lookout for a damaged Honda Civic, PCSP Sgt. Larry LaFlower told the Chesterton Tribune today.

The suspect driver may have garaged the car immediately after the crash or placed it under a tarp, with plans to have it repaired after the heat is off.

It’s also possible that the suspect driver has access to another vehicle and is now using that one. Neighbors, co-workers, or acquaintances of someone who has customarily driven a Honda Civic but is now driving a different vehicle should contact Capt. Larry Sheets at 477-3142 or the WeTip hotline at (800) 782-7463.

And, of course, body shops are also being urged to report a suspicious vehicle.

The suspect vehicle is an older model Honda Civic, 1992-95, color unknown. It will be missing a passenger’s side exterior mirror. It will also be missing the black molding strip on the passenger’s side B pillar, which runs vertically between the front and rear doors. And it will have sustained damage to the passenger’s side front bumper and headlight assembly.

Meanwhile, the 21-year-old victim of the hit-and-run is now out of the Intensive Care Unit and has been moved to a regular hospital bed, LaFlower said.

According to police, at 9:43 p.m. June 11 a couple was northbound in the 1000 north block of C.R. 200W when they heard screaming. The couple stopped and found a woman in a ditch on the east side of the road.

The woman—who was wearing a bright orange fluorescent top at the time—advised police that she was jogging southbound on C.R. 200W but remembered nothing else until “waking up on the side of the road in pain.”

The woman was hospitalized with two broken vertebra, a shattered ankle, and a separated shoulder.

Investigators believe that the suspect vehicle was northbound on C.R. 200W when it struck the woman.

Posted 6/20/2012