Las Vegas police have found the SUV they say struck and killed an 84-year-old woman on East Cheyenne Avenue last month and sped away — but the person who was driving it on the morning of October 26 is still unknown. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department says tips from the public led investigators on Tuesday, November 10, to a parked, unoccupied Chevrolet Tahoe, which has been processed for evidence and impounded while the search for its driver continues.

Source: KSNV News 3 Las Vegas

Police now identify the vehicle as a 2025 Chevrolet Tahoe Z71. That is a sharper description than the one detectives worked with for two weeks: in their first appeals they described a burgundy 2021-to-2026 Chevrolet Tahoe with damage to its front-right headlight, and asked anyone who saw such an SUV in northeast Las Vegas to call in. Police have released no description of the driver, and no arrest has been announced.

The morning of October 26

The crash happened at about 5:55 a.m. on Monday, October 26, on East Cheyenne Avenue just west of North Walnut Road, near Las Vegas Boulevard in the northeast valley. Police say Ruth Fleischmann, 84, of Henderson was crossing Cheyenne northbound, outside a marked or implied crosswalk, when a westbound Tahoe struck her with its right front end. The driver did not stop and continued west on Cheyenne Avenue.

Early police reports described Fleischmann as using a wheelchair as she crossed. She was taken to University Medical Center's Trauma Unit with life-threatening injuries and later died there. In the days after the crash her family publicly appealed for help finding the driver, and police repeated that the death was the 98th traffic-related fatality in Metro's jurisdiction so far in 2026 — a count that has kept rising on valley roads this year.

What investigators are doing now

With the Tahoe in a police lot, the work shifts from finding a vehicle to proving who was driving it. Processing a recovered vehicle for evidence can yield fingerprints, DNA, phone or key data and damage patterns that tie a specific person to the driver's seat at a specific time, and detectives in Metro's Collision Investigation Section are leading the case. Police say the investigation is ongoing and they have not released any description of the driver.

East Cheyenne Avenue is one of the main east-west arterials across the northeast valley, carrying commuter and freight traffic between North Las Vegas, the I-15 corridor and the city's eastern neighbourhoods. The crash happened before sunrise in late October, when the road is dark and traffic is already building — conditions valley safety advocates have long flagged in pedestrian deaths, most of which happen to people crossing wide, fast arterials away from signalised crossings.

Nevada law requires a driver involved in a crash to stop, identify themselves and help anyone who is injured. Leaving the scene of a fatal crash is investigated as a felony hit-and-run case, which is how Metro's detectives are treating this one. No one has been charged in Fleischmann's death so far; anyone accused in the future would be entitled to the presumption of innocence unless proven guilty in court.

What happens next: if detectives identify the driver, an arrest on hit-and-run allegations is the expected step, followed by a first court appearance in Clark County. Until then, the case rests on the evidence inside the impounded Tahoe and on whether anyone who saw it parked — or who knows who drove it on October 26 — comes forward. For Fleischmann's family, who asked the public for help two weeks ago, the vehicle is found; the person behind its wheel that morning is still missing.