A Bethel man will serve six months in jail as part of a total sentence of five years for leaving the scene of a fatal hit and run incident.
Forrest Jenkins, 68, was initially arrested for the hit and run incident on Nov. 7, 2024, hours after police responded to reports of an unresponsive man on the side of Chief Eddie Hoffman Highway near the Bethel airport.
According to charging documents, medics attempted to resuscitate the unresponsive man, 48-year-old Jesse Frank of Tuntutuliak, at the scene of the accident. Frank was later pronounced dead at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation regional hospital. At the scene, court records indicate that police found gray car parts matching damage to a truck driven by Jenkins.
The same evening, Bethel police said that they performed a traffic stop of the truck driven by Jenkins, who admitted to hitting a person with his vehicle and leaving the scene out of fear.
Jenkins pleaded guilty through a plea agreement to one count of felony leaving the scene of an accident without providing assistance.
In sentencing arguments, the state said that witnesses had seen Frank acting erratically along the highway on the evening of his death. The state acknowledged that the victim’s family was very upset that Jenkins had not been charged with homicide. But the state said that there was not evidence to justify homicide charges, including a lack of evidence that Jenkins had been intoxicated at the time of the incident.
On Feb. 18, Bethel Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Peters sentenced Jenkins to five years in jail with four and a half years suspended, in addition to three years of probation and a one-year driver’s license suspension, among other conditions.
