Woman killed in hit-and-run crash in northeast ABQ

Driver who allegedly caused wreck later found

A 28-year-old woman was killed in a hit-and-run crash in northeast Albuquerque early Wednesday morning.

Alyssa Barboa died on the scene. The man, Casey Zuni, who police say crashed into her vehicle, possibly broke his leg, according to court documents.

Zuni, 24, has not been charged but a police department spokesman identified him as a suspect. Officers filed a search warrant in the 2nd Judicial District Court to test his blood to see if he was intoxicated at the time of the crash.

Officer Tanner Tixier, a spokesman for the Albuquerque Police Department, said the preliminary investigation found that around 1:15 a.m. a vehicle — later determined to be driven by Barboa with two passengers inside — was traveling southbound on Pennsylvania NE. He said she was driving across Comanche when she was hit by another vehicle, heading west.

He said Barboa’s vehicle smashed into a brick wall on the southwest corner of the intersection and ended up partially in the backyard of a nearby house. Barboa died on the scene but her two passengers didn’t suffer any major injuries.

According to the search warrant affidavit, witnesses told police that the driver of the other vehicle, later determined to be Zuni, fled and was picked up by someone driving a motorcycle.

It’s unclear exactly what happened next, but about four and a half hours later an Uber driver called police to say he had picked up Zuni near where the crash occurred.

“As the Uber driver drove by the traffic scene, he noticed that the male subject had blood on his shirt and appeared very nervous while driving by the crash site,” an officer wrote in the affidavit. “The Uber driver dropped off the male subject and called 911 because he was concerned about the subject and the fact that he appeared very nervous.”

Officers went to a home on Woodford NE, near Montgomery and San Pedro NE, and found Zuni. He was taken to the hospital to be treated for a possible broken leg.

When officers questioned Zuni he said he had drunk four beers while playing pool at Billiards Palace, according to the affidavit. He said he had been in a crash but the other vehicle had struck him and he believed he had a green light.