An Arkansas man who told police he believed he had hit a deer when he drove off after fatally striking a woman last year has pleaded guilty to charges including negligent homicide.
Tristen Eric Fernandez, 27, of West Fork also pleaded guilty Wednesday to leaving the scene of a fatal or injury accident and was sentenced to eight years in prison with two of them suspended.
Fernandez pleaded guilty to charges filed after the June 7, 2017, collision in which Yessi Beatriz Rauda Paredes, 24, of Fayetteville was killed. Paredes was walking along the sidewalk near the intersection of West Wedington Drive and North Gold Club Drive when a Chevrolet Equinox traveling west on Wedington jumped the curb and hit her, according to police reports. She died at the scene.
Police found the SUV in the parking lot of a shopping area at 3980 W. Wedington Drive with the passenger's side tires flat, bent rims, damage to the front passenger side and hood and with blood and makeup on the hood.
Fernandez was arrested later that day.