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PD awaits DNA results on year-old accident
By Bill Hankins
The Paris News
Published November 20, 2009
The hit-run mishap that put Paris resident Billy Joe Cannon, 70, in the hospital in December of last year and later in a nursing home still remains a continuing investigation, according to Paris Police Chief Bob Hundley.
“We still are awaiting DNA results,” Hundley said Thursday. “We checked with the lab three weeks ago, and they told us it would likely be another three months before we would get the results.”
The DNA sample was taken from the car of a woman who took her car to be repaired shortly after Cannon was hit at 8th Street and Lamar in December 2008.
When questioned, she told police she thought she had hit an animal and was not sure she was the one that hit Cannon.
Hundley said that leaves police awaiting results of the DNA tests to prove it was her car that hit the Paris man before the case can proceed to the district attorney’s office.
Cannon has been recuperating at Paris Nursing Home, where he has been a resident since being transferred there from a Dallas hospital in March.
Earlier this year he said: “I don’t know what happened. I was carrying a cup of coffee, and I don’t remember what happened after that.”
“When DNA results are in, we can determine what to do with the case,” said County and District Attorney Gary Young.
Cannon, who has operated a lawn mowing and landscaping operation for years and is well known by many Paris residents, said he had just returned from getting a cup of coffee at a local store when his world went topsy-turvey.
According to Cannon’s niece, doctors said his road to recovery will be long and the path ahead is unknown.
Cannon was crossing the street in a pedestrian crosswalk when struck.
When police arrived they found Cannon unconscious but still breathing. He was rushed to Paris Regional Medical Center in critical condition.
He then was flown to a Dallas hospital, where he underwent medical care for broken bones and other injuries.
Police later found the vehicle they believed hit Cannon when the owner took the vehicle in to be repaired.
Hundley said the owner is cooperating with the investigation but said she did not know she had hit a person.
As for his recovery, Cannon said he is getting out of bed more often than before, but is not able to get outside in the world he remembers as “the great outdoors.”
He said he still has some lawn care equipment “somewhere” and hopes to eventually get to use it.
“I love mowing lawns and helping people,” he said.
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