Crime & Safety
Hospital Evidence Returned in Deadly Hit & Run Case
A Naperville man charged with running down a Plainfield graduate and leaving her to die will return to court next month.
Edward Hospital and Alexian Brothers Health System provided documents subpoenaed for the case against a Naperville man charged with running down a Joliet woman and leaving her to die.
Defense attorney Stephen Whitmore told Will County Judge Robert Livas during a Thursday morning hearing for David McCarthy that the documents had been provided.
McCarthy, 29, allegedly ran down 20-year-old Melissa Lech, a District 202 graduate, on McDonough Street in August 2008. On the night of her death, Lech drank on the way up to a White Sox game, continued drinking at the game and on the way back to Joliet, and then headed to the Jefferson Street bar City of Champions, a source close to the case said.
Lech, under the influence and underage, was denied service at City of Champions, the source said. She was apparently on foot when she was run over about a half-mile away.
The identity of the driver who hit Lech remained a mystery for three and a half years. In 2009, with the case still unsolved, her mother filed suit in Cook County Court against City of Champions, the White Sox, At Your Service LLC, Chisox Corp. and various others. The lawsuit was still pending when McCarthy, the son of Naperville attorney David McCarthy III, was arrested in February 2012 and charged with the deadly wreck.
McCarthy reportedly turned up on the doorstep of Lech's sister Michelle and confessed to the hit-and-run accident. The Cook County lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed soon after McCarthy's arrest, according to court records. Lech's mother then sued McCarthy. The wrongful death lawsuit was settled in June for $250,000.
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McCarthy has been locked up in the county jail since his arrest. He is being held in lieu of $1 million.
Judge Livas set an August date for McCarthy to return to court.
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