A 46-year-old Bellmawr man is facing a second-degree felony charge after a fatal hit-and-run on Blue Bell Road in Monroe Township, Gloucester County, killed a 73-year-old pedestrian on Thursday evening, November 5 — and after police say a K-9 tracked him from a parked car at a convenience store into a wooded area nearby. Gloucester County Prosecutor Andrew Johns announced that Shaun D. Fennimore has been charged with second-degree knowingly leaving the scene of an accident that resulted in another person's death, and third-degree driving with a suspended license.
Source: WPST (94.5 PST), reporting Gloucester County Prosecutor Andrew Johns
The charges are accusations, not a conviction: like every defendant in New Jersey, Fennimore is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If he is convicted, the prosecutor's announcement says, he faces up to 10 years in state prison on the second-degree charge and up to five years on the third-degree charge.
The 5:47 p.m. call on Blue Bell Road
According to documents filed in the case, Monroe Township Police responded to Blue Bell Road at 5:47 p.m. on Thursday, November 5, after a report that a vehicle had struck a pedestrian. The victim, 73-year-old Margaret M. Flail, was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The driver did not stay. Investigators say the driver left the scene before police arrived — the act at the centre of the case, because New Jersey law requires a driver involved in a crash to stop, and knowingly leaving a crash that kills someone is graded as a second-degree crime, the charge the prosecutor has filed here.
A parked car, a camera — and K-9 Cairo
Police later found the suspected vehicle parked at a nearby Heritage convenience store. Surveillance video showed a male suspect running from the vehicle, investigators say — the footage that turned a hit-and-run with no driver into a manhunt on foot.
Monroe Township K-9 Cairo then tracked Fennimore to a wooded area near Clayton and Railroad Avenues, where he was taken into custody, the prosecutor's announcement said. A search warrant was obtained for blood and urine samples from Fennimore; the results of those tests are still pending.
Investigators obtained a search warrant for blood and urine samples after Fennimore was taken into custody. The Gloucester County Prosecutor's announcement says the results are pending — no finding about impairment has been announced, and none should be assumed.
Where this happened
Monroe Township — the Williamstown area — is a large, fast-growing township in Gloucester County in South Jersey, where suburban subdivisions sit alongside wooded stretches and two-lane local roads like Blue Bell Road. Bellmawr, where Fennimore lives, is a borough in neighbouring Camden County. The crash happened in the early-evening darkness of a November weekday, when roads across South Jersey are carrying homebound traffic and pedestrians have little daylight left.
For Awaaz Punjab's many readers in New Jersey — one of the largest Punjabi diaspora communities in the United States, spread from Edison and Jersey City down through South Jersey — the case is a stark reminder of two duties every driver on these roads carries: stop after any crash, stay at the scene and call 911, because leaving can turn a tragedy into a felony case of its own.
What happens next
Fennimore's case will now move through the Gloucester County courts, where hearing dates are still to be announced. The pending blood and urine results will be part of the file prosecutors build, and any further charges would be announced by the prosecutor's office. Awaaz Punjab will follow the first court appearance and the test results, and will update this story as the case moves.