Police examine SUV in hit-and-run; fund established for victim

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Police examined a vehicle Wednesday that may have been involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident on Interstate 680 earlier this week.

Youngstown Detective Sgt. Dave Lomax said investigators were looking at an SUV after they received a tip it may have been involved in the death of 20-year-old Nicole Baird of Struthers.

Baird was killed at about 5:30 a.m. Monday in the southbound lanes of the highway. Investigators have said she pulled over in the left lane near the median because after a bag of leaves became lodged under her car. The car may have been smoking, they said.

Baird got out of the car and was struck by a vehicle traveling north, which flipped her over the concrete median into the southbound lanes, where she was hit again and killed.

“She was like family, and I feel so bad,” said Robert Reber, a friend and Baird’s neighbor. “The way she died was so horrible.”

Reber has established the Justice for Nicole Baird Fund at Huntington National Bank to go toward a reward and for Baird’s services.

Read the complete story in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.