A 45-year-old Homeland man died Saturday night after a hit-and-run driver struck him while he was riding his bicycle at the intersection of Leon Road and Queen Palm Drive, and then fled without stopping. Juan Holguin was rushed to a hospital but succumbed to his injuries roughly four hours later. The driver responsible has not been identified.
Driver Fled, Abandoned Car in Nearby Dirt Alley
According to mynewsla.com, Holguin was fatally hit shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday when the driver of a gray Mazda 3 sedan struck him at an unconfirmed speed and kept going. Witnesses immediately reported seeing him down in the roadway and called for help. He was taken to Riverside University Medical Center in Moreno Valley, where he died about four hours later.
Investigators later found a gray Mazda 3 matching the description abandoned in a dirt alley roughly 1.5 miles from the crash scene, the outlet reported. The vehicle displayed damage consistent with the reported collision, including damage to the passenger side of the front windshield, and it was impounded as evidence. Neither the driver's speed nor direction of travel at the time of impact has been confirmed. The California Highway Patrol has not announced an arrest or identified a suspect, and anyone with information relevant to the investigation is asked to contact the CHP Temecula office at 951-466-4300.
A Difficult Week for Southern California Cyclists
Holguin's death came just days after another Southern California cyclist was killed in a hit-and-run near the Rosecrans Boulevard on-ramp to the 710 Freeway in Paramount. That victim was later identified as 54-year-old Melchor De la Torre, according to BikinginLA. In that case, the California Highway Patrol responded to the initial call just before midnight Friday and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department joined the investigation, per ABC7, though there were no leads and no description of the suspect or vehicle at the time of that report.
BikinginLA's tracking, cited in its report on the Paramount case, counted at least 51 bicycling fatalities across Southern California so far in 2026, including 17 in Los Angeles County, with at least 16 of those deaths attributed to hit-and-run drivers. The same report described the Paramount case as the third Southern California bicycling death in three days.
State Health Officials Flag Rising E-Bike Injuries
Separately, Riverside University Health System has flagged what it calls an alarming increase in injuries among youth riding electric bicycles, some serious and even fatal, according to the County of Riverside, which is urging residents to follow safety guidelines. It remains unclear whether Holguin was riding a standard bicycle or an e-bike, and the dossier does not connect that health advisory directly to his death.
No arrest has been announced in Holguin's killing, and investigators continue to seek witnesses who may have seen the gray Mazda 3 in the area around Leon Road and Queen Palm Drive Saturday night. For now, the case adds to a grim run of unsolved hit-and-run bicycling deaths across the region this year.
