Background: A section of Nashville Road in Bethel, Connecticut (Google Maps). Inset left: Andrew Hitchcock (Bethel Police Department/News-Times). Inset right: Michael Herman Rieve (Danbury Memorial and Cremation Service LLC).
A Connecticut man was crossing the street to check his mailbox when he was run down by a passing driver who left the victim to die, authorities say.
Andrew Hitchcock, 66, has been charged with evading responsibility in a fatal accident, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show. Prosecutors expect him to take a plea deal and be sentenced in the coming weeks, The News-Times reported, identifying the victim in the fatal crash as 65-year-old Michael Rieve.
On Sept. 22, 2025, Rieve was crossing Nashville Road in Bethel, Connecticut — the street where his house was located — to check his mailbox when a white Infiniti G37 hit him. Investigators maintain that Hitchcock was driving home from work when he struck the victim and did not stop to help or notify emergency services.
The Infiniti driver did not stop, according to authorities. Rieve reportedly lay hurt for 10 minutes before a passing driver saw him and called for help.
Officers with the Bethel Police Department responded to the scene at about 8 p.m. and "it was quickly determined that the male had been struck by a north bound vehicle which had fled the scene prior to police arrival." Rieve was transported to an area hospital and then transferred to another one, where he was pronounced dead the next day.
According to an arrest warrant for Hitchcock, a camera in a Tesla parked at Rieve's residence captured the crash and fleeing of the Infiniti. A vehicle's side mirror that was left behind also appeared to match the car shown on the footage.
Investigators then obtained surveillance footage from a nearby gas station that showed a vehicle passing through with an "uneven light" appearing to indicate that a headlight was damaged or destroyed. Police said that as they canvassed the area, they "located a vehicle that matched the description of the suspect vehicle and appeared to have damage and marks consistent with the accident."
The vehicle was "seized, and a search warrant obtained in which further testing confirmed that vehicle was the vehicle that struck the victim," police added. Court records say that Hitchcock was arrested on Dec. 6, 2025.
Hitchcock was released on $75,000 bond. During a court appearance on Monday, Hitchcock's attorney acknowledged that prosecutors made them an offer, and he said he would discuss it with his client, per The News-Times.
The defendant's next court date is scheduled for June 1.
Rieve's obituary remembers him as a sailor who had just begun to golf, as a Bethel Fire Department volunteer, but yet whose "greatest passion in life was loving his family, especially his grandchildren."