Sheriff's deputy killed in hit and run, family desperate for tips from witnesses
HENRY COUNTY, Ga. - A sheriff deputy's family is pleading for the public's help after Cedrean Jacquis McEachin was hit and killed on Interstate 75 on Nov. 29 by an unknown driver.
On Friday, a sea of men and women in uniform joined the McEachin family to remember the 28-year-old at Mt. Ephriam Baptist Church in northwest Atlanta; their heartache was palpable, just one week after McEachin died in a way no one was prepared for.
"I knew with his line of work there was always a chance of something happening at work, but for something to happen like this, I don't understand how can you be human and hit someone and just leave him," said sister Tiara McEachin.
Two exits from his home in McDonough, police said McEachin veered off I-75 southbound, crashing his black 2017 Chevy Camaro into a guardrail near mile marker 225.
"When he gets out of his car, he's looking around and somehow he wanders off into the roadway and is struck by a vehicle," said Maj. Joey Smith, Henry County Police.
The driver of that vehicle did not stop.
"We have no idea who struck him, and we don't have any witnesses," Smith added.
"What kind of human being would hit another human being and leave them laying in the street?" asked father Cedric McEachin, as tears filled his eyes. "I can't imagine a person, a human being that could do something like that."
It's still unclear what caused the initial collision. McEachin's family told FOX 5 he was returning from a friend's place when he crashed around 5 a.m. on Black Friday -- just seven hours after Tiara's last phone call with her younger brother.
"I told him I loved him, and I was like, 'I'll see you tomorrow,'" she recalled. "So to see him at 10 o'clock, and then 6 o'clock he's gone, it just really breaks my heart because he was my only brother, my only sibling."
Anyone with information is asked to call the Henry County Police Department at 770-288-8293.