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Motorist in fatal hit-and-run crash charged

One day after accused hit-run driver Daniel Eugene Mitchell struck and killed a pedestrian on Route 220 in Woodward Township in early March, Mitchell drove the vehicle to Mifflinburg, where he parked it behind an auction hall and covered it with a tarp, according to state police.

When he later learned from a media report that someone had died in the crash, Mitchell, 31, of 78 Rock Run Road, Cogan Station, turned himself in to the state police barracks in Selinsgrove on March 3, police said..

Mitchell was arrested late Tuesday morning on charges of accidents involving death or personal injury, tampering with evidence, obstruction of the administration of law, careless driving and related offenses.

Police alleged Mitchell fled the scene after the 2001 Saturn he was driving struck and killed Dennis Burley, 54, of Muncy in the southbound lanes of Route 220, where West Fourth Street merges with the highway, about 11:30 p.m. on March 1.

Burley was crossing the southbound lanes of Route 220 and stepped in front of the Saturn, Trooper Troy Hansen said.

Burley was “struck multiple times off” the car before landing in the roadway, Hansen said.

After surrendering at the Selinsgrove barracks, Mitchell was interviewed by Cpl. Travis Doebler.

The motorist told the trooper that he was entering Route 220 from West Fourth Street when “the vehicle struck something, but he related that he could not tell what it was,” Hansen wrote in an affidavit.

Mitchell said that he stopped across from the Woodward Township firehouse to check the damage to the car, and then drove home, Hansen said in the affidavit.

During the interview, Mitchell admitted to driving the car that struck Burley, Hansen said.

Mitchell said that on the day after the crash, he “moved the car to Donald Chubb’s Auction Hall (in Mifflinburg), parked it at the back of the hall and placed a tarp over it,” Hansen said.

Chubb is the owner of the car, Hansen said, adding that troopers located the car behind the hall, covered it a tarp. Police then impounded the vehicle.

Following his arraignment before District Judge William Solomon, Mitchell was released on $150,000 bail.

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