LIVE OAK — The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s-Coroner’s Office has identified a pedestrian killed in a hit-and-run crash Wednesday.
Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Ashley Keehn named the pedestrian, who was killed along with a dog, as 43-year-old Ryan Fairrington, who had no fixed address. Fairrington was walking along Seventh Avenue near Eddy Lane when he was struck in the roadway around 2:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Driver Pedro Martinez Urbano, 54, of Watsonville, turned himself in to police on the day of the crash, Santa Cruz County Assistant District Attorney Alex Byers said during Urbano’s arraignment last week.
Urbano pleaded not guilty Friday through a Spanish-language interpreter to charges of felony hit-and-run and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. Defense attorney Manuel Nieto told Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Leila Sayar that his client, who was a licensed and insured driver, had worked the past three years as a cook in a Santa Cruz restaurant with no significant criminal record and was unlikely to flee the area if released on bail on $30,000 bail. Urbano, whose family and friends appeared in court Friday, was released from the Santa Cruz County Jail on Monday, according to jail records.
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