A 76-year-old Pearsall man is dead after a driver struck him and sped off before dawn on Business 35 East, and more than a week later, police still haven't found who did it. Abel E. Mendoza was killed in the crash, which happened before 2:30 a.m. on August 1 in the 3000 block of the busy commercial corridor.
The Pearsall Police Department identified the victim as Mendoza and said the suspected driver fled the scene in an unknown direction, according to police cited by KSAT. No vehicle description or suspect information has been released, and investigators have not said whether they've recovered debris or surveillance footage from the scene to help identify the vehicle involved.
Police Appeal Directly To The Public
Pearsall police said any information, no matter how small it may seem, could be valuable and will assist investigators in advancing the fatal hit-and-run investigation, per the same report. Investigators have asked anyone with information to come forward, and callers are directed to ask for Lieutenant N. Ximenez at 830-334-4169.
Under Texas Transportation Code § 550.021, fleeing the scene of a fatal crash is a second-degree felony, carrying a potential sentence of 2 to 20 years in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000, according to the Texas Legislature. It's a stark legal reminder that Texas law treats abandoning an injured or dying person at the scene of a crash as seriously as many violent crimes.
A Small Town With A Deadly Stretch Of Road
Business 35 East runs through Pearsall as a former highway alignment parallel to Interstate 35, a heavy freight corridor linking San Antonio to the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo, according to Frio County background records. Pearsall itself is a small community of roughly 9,000 residents and serves as the county seat, with about 89% of the population identifying as Hispanic or Latino, per Census Reporter data.
This isn't the first deadly crash to rattle the small city this year. Hoodline previously reported that two teens died in a January crash at Oak and East Trinity streets in downtown Pearsall, a collision that later led grieving parents to file a wrongful-death lawsuit in Frio County district court. Frio County recorded six fatal traffic crashes and six total fatalities across all road types in 2024, according to Texas Department of Transportation crash records.
Pedestrians Remain Especially At Risk
Statewide, the numbers show why fatal pedestrian crashes draw such intensive investigative focus. Pedestrian collisions make up only about 1% of Texas traffic crashes, yet pedestrians accounted for nearly 19% of all roadway fatalities in 2024, with 772 pedestrian deaths recorded that year, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. Even as overall Texas traffic deaths declined to 3,809 in 2025 — an 8% drop from the year before and part of a multi-year decline from the 2021 peak of nearly 4,500 deaths, per Angel Reyes & Associates — pedestrians remain disproportionately vulnerable on the state's roads.
The danger isn't limited to Texas. Preliminary data from the Governors Highway Safety Association showed U.S. pedestrian deaths dropped 10.9% in the first half of 2025 compared with the year before, though nationwide pedestrian fatalities still ran 2.5% higher than pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Texas has recorded at least one traffic fatality on its public roads every single day since November 7, 2000, a grim streak that state transportation officials track through the #EndTheStreakTX safety initiative.
Criminal traffic investigations in Pearsall are led by the Pearsall Police Department, with operational support from the Frio County Sheriff's Office, which runs the county jail and coordinates law enforcement countywide. For now, the driver who left Abel E. Mendoza to die on Business 35 East remains unidentified, and investigators are counting on the public to close that gap.
