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Man dies after east valley car crash, 5 months after fatal shooting at same location

A 63-year-old man hit by a vehicle at an east valley intersection earlier this month has died, authorities said Tuesday.

Robert Patrick Tully, 63, died Sunday at University Medical Center where he had been treated since the crash, according to a Metropolitan Police Department news release.

He was struck by a car just before 2 a.m. May 5 while preparing to go to sleep in a makeshift tent in the desert rocks next to South Sandhill Road just south of Hawaii Avenue.

Five months earlier, Tully avoided injury in a deadly shooting at a homeless camp at the same intersection.

A witness said Tully was preparing the tent when a 2012 Chevrolet Cruze LS traveled off the right side of the road and struck him, throwing him into some nearby bushes.

After the collision, the driver of the Chevrolet briefly stopped at a business just north of the crash but fled the scene. The driver and his passenger abandoned the vehicle nearby and fled on foot.

Police identified the hit-and-run driver as 20-year-old Washington, Utah, resident Yester Yancarlos Paz-Zavala, who was located hours later. He faces charges that include duty to stop at an accident involving death or injury and driving without a license, jail records show.

On Dec. 1, 2023, Tully escaped injury in a shooting at the intersection. Two men died and three others were wounded.

Cristobal Omar Perez, 31, and Kylee Au Young, 21, were arrested in January in connection with the December shooting, Metro police said.

Tully had spoken with Las Vegas Review-Journal reporters in the days after the December shooting, sharing his horror and grief over his lost and injured friends.

He described himself as a former high voltage electrician who had been living in Las Vegas since the 1980s and had been without a home for the past 11 years.

After the car crash, friends were pulling for Tully to survive.

“Really good-hearted, but he’s tough,” said Jeremy Flores, 35, who said he witnessed the May 5 crash and has known Tully, whom he calls Bob, for more than 10 years.

“That’s just how it looked around here, like a war zone,” Tully had said.

Tully’s death was the 69th traffic-related fatality in Metro’s jurisdiction this year.

Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. Review-Journal editor Brett Clarkson contributed to this report.

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