Cops have possible lead in fatal I-680 crash; services set 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 about 5:30 a.m. Monday in the southbound lanes of the highway.

Investigators have said she was driving north on the highway near the Shirley Road exit when she ran over a bag of leaves.

Baird pulled over in the left lane near the median because the bag had become lodged under her car and the car may have been smoking.

She 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.

The driver of the northbound vehicle stopped, but the driver of the southbound vehicle did not, police said.

Robert Reber was a friend and Baird’s neighbor.

“She was like family, and I feel so bad,” he said.

“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 in finding the person who struck her and did not stop, and also for Baird’s funeral services.

“I just want to do something,” he said.

He said his teenage daughter spent time with Baird.

“I am just brokenhearted,” he said.

Wednesday was his daughter’s 13th birthday and on the way to school, she told him her only birthday wish: “I just want Nikki to come back.”

Lomax said police received an anonymous tip to check the SUV.

Neither the vehicle nor its driver are from Youngstown, he noted.

No one had been charged as of late Wednesday.

Baird’s death is the fourth traffic fatality in the city within two weeks.

About 18 hours after her death, Francisco Pagan, 52, of Youngstown, was killed in a one-vehicle accident on Lansdowne Boulevard at East High Avenue when his vehicle ran off the road and hit a utility pole.

On Oct. 1, a man was killed on Market Street after his motorcycle collided with a car, and a man was killed Sept. 26 in a motorcycle accident, also on Market.

Services for Baird are scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday at Rossi Brothers & Lellio Funeral Home, 4442 South Ave., Boardman, where friends may call from 10 a.m. to the time of services.