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“His injuries are not consistent with being struck by a car,” Maywood Police Chief David T. Pegg said last night.
Rather, the chief told CLIFFVIEW PILOT, “we now feel the victim had been assaulted and possibly robbed. Investigators have widened their search and viewing more cameras from where people saw the victim walking.”
The victim — 51-year-old James Gilly of Ridgefield Park– still hasn’t regained consciousness at Hackensack University Medical Center, where he was brought after the incident last Friday.
The best clue authorities have at the moment are video images of a red vehicle turning onto East Pleasant Avenue near Elm Street on Friday.
Once the car reached Gilly, who lay in the middle of the street, it backed up and went around him, Pegg said.
“We’re still looking for the vehicle — but only to question the driver as a witness,” the chief told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
The mystery deepened when Maywood police learned that both Gilly and his girlfriend earlier that night were taken to Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, where “she received treatment for an unknown medical problem,” Pegg said.
The woman uses a wheelchair because of a prior illness, he said, adding that his officers were called to an area blocks from where Gilly was found on a report of a man pushing an empty wheelchair.
“They were still checking the area when the accident call came in,” Pegg said.
As police and EMS workers treated Gilly, his boot was found about 20 feet away. The wheelchair was at the curb a few feet away.
The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Fatal Accident Unit and the county Sheriff’s Bureau of Criminal Identification assisted with the investigation, Pegg said.
They’re all hoping that someone comes forward with information that helps them determine what happened.
Maywood PD: (201) 845-8800
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