Dayton man indicted in April 2020 hit-and-run crash that killed Fairborn woman

A warrant was issued for the arrest of a Dayton man indicted Thursday for a deadly hit-and-run crash in April 2020 that killed a Fairborn woman.

Jason Aaron Cartwright, 40, is scheduled to be arraigned May 27 in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court for vehicular homicide and three counts of failure to stop after an accident.

Cartwright was driving a black 2007 Chevrolet Monte Carlo on the evening of April 5, 2020, in the 1600 block of North Gettysburg Avenue near North James H. McGee Boulevard in Dayton when he rear-ended a silver 2006 Chevrolet Impala before striking a utility pole.

The impact sent the Impala, driven by 35-year-old Tasha Denise Watkins, across the median. Watkins’ car hit a minivan head-on before going off the left side of the road. The minivan then hit a Saab in the southbound lanes, according to a Dayton Police Department traffic crash report.

Watkins was taken to Miami Valley Hospital, where she died of her injures.

Cartwright drove a block away and parked his car at a Clark gas station 1655 N. Gettysburg Ave., where he “was caught on surveillance video being picked up in another vehicle,” the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office stated in a release.

Cartwright did not have a valid driver’s license and had six license suspensions in place at the time of the crash, the prosecutor’s office said.

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