EVERETT — An Everett man has admitted that he’s responsible for stealing Scotty Becktell’s ability to walk.
Becktell, 22, was struck in January as he walked to his graveyard shift at McDonald’s in south Everett. Becktell was in the crosswalk on 128th Street. The impact traumatically injured his spinal cord. He gets around in a wheelchair now.
The fleeing driver later told detectives his windshield was fogged up. Scott Duncan, 33, claimed that he didn’t see Becktell. He also told detectives that he thought he hit something but when he looked back he didn’t see anything in the roadway.
A witness told Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies the suspect vehicle braked after hitting Becktell and then “sped off.”
When investigators found Duncan’s vehicle several days later they noted that the Ford Edge’s hood was significantly crinkled and dislodged.
There was a crack near the passenger head lamp.
Duncan recently pleaded guilty to hit-and-run injury accident, a felony. Under state sentencing guidelines, he faces up to nine months in jail when he’s sentenced in January. Duncan doesn’t have any prior criminal convictions.
Duncan claimed that when he arrived home and noticed the damage he returned to the scene but no one was there, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Tobin Darrow wrote in court papers. He didn’t call anyone to report his suspicions.
Detectives used video from a nearby laundromat to track down Duncan’s vehicle.
They learned that a Ford Edge was registered to the defendant who lived less than a mile from the scene of the crash and directly across the street from the collision detectives’ office.
A detective found the Edge parked in the driveway. The damage was obvious. Duncan wasn’t home but detectives spoke with his wife, who agreed to relay their message. Duncan agreed to come in for an interview.
“I know I hit something bigger, but I had no idea what it was,” Duncan told detectives.
Becktell spent nearly three months in the hospital. Along with the devastating spinal cord injury, he had a concussion, broken wrist, broken ring finger and fractures to three other fingers.
Doctors have told Becktell that he won’t walk again.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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