COVINGTON, Ky. -- The man hit by a car on northbound I-75 and dragged for two miles while stuck in the car's windshield early Thursday was homeless, Covington police said.
Authorities identified the man as 51-year-old Brian Patrick Marlin, and said he came to Northern Kentucky from Oregon and Oklahoma.
The driver of the car that hit Marlin just after 1 a.m. Thursday has not been identified. Police are still investigating the crash and death.
In 911 calls, the driver told dispatchers that Marlin was attempting to cross the interstate. Fort Wright dispatchers received a call just before 1 a.m. about a pedestrian in that area, but officers didn't see anybody when they responded.
The driver drove two miles after hitting Marlin and stopped at a Speedway gas station at Fifth and Philadelphia streets. He asked a clerk to call for help; Marlin's body was still lodged in the car's windshield.
LISTEN to the 911 calls below
"I don't think (he's breathing)," the driver said in the 911 call. "He looks like he's got to be dead."
"Okay, well you thinking and you definitely knowing are two different things, and I need somebody to go out and see if he is breathing," the dispatcher said. "I need somebody to walk outside and positively tell me if he is breathing."
"Well, I don't really want to do it," the driver said in the 911 call.
Police are reviewing video from interstate cameras and counting on possible eyewitnesses to tell them what happened.
"If it had been me. I would have been jumping out of the car just running, screaming. I didn't understand his nonchalance," said Shawna Hudson, a witness who saw the car after the crash.
Hudson said she flagged down a police officer after following the black car up I-71/75 and stopping near the Speedway. She said she couldn't believe it and thought someone was pulling a prank.
Police found one of Marlin's feet in the northbound lanes of the highway about 150 yards from the Kyles Lane exit.
Police ask anyone who witnessed the crash to call the Covington Police Traffic Unit at 859-292-2252.
