Arrest made in Cape Coral fatal hit-and-run

CAPE CORAL, Fla. – Cape Coral police have arrested 55-year-old Gerald Gray in connection with the fatal hit-and-run that killed Donnell Strum, 83.

Police say he was taken into custody around 2 p.m. and has been cooperative.

Gray has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident and driving with a suspended license.

Cape Coral police have identified the victim in a fatal hit-and-run crash in the parking lot of a RaceTrac gas station.

Police say Donnell Strum, 83, was walking out of the convenience store at the RaceTrac on the 2600 block of Del Prado Boulevard Wednesday afternoon when he was hit and killed.

Witnesses say the driver of a blue Dodge pickup truck saw he’d hit the elderly man, but fled the scene eastbound onto Southeast 26th Street.

A witness followed as the driver headed west on Everest Parkway and then through a parking lot of a business. The driver then exited a parking lot by driving over two dirt mounds and the sidewalk where it turned east onto the Veterans Memorial Parkway on-ramp, then drove east toward Fort Myers and out of Cape Coral.

Family and friends say Strum moved to Cape Coral in 1990 after working with Delta for 28 years. They say his motto as a leader was that, “people did not work for him, but with him.” They say he always believed in being a team.

Strum was a Korean War Veteran as a B29 flight engineer. He was married to his wife Laurene for 32 years.

One of his best friends, Larry Solecki, said hearing the news of his death was unbearable.

“We just had fun, all the time we had fun. I don’t recall him ever really being in a bad situation to where he wasn’t enjoying himself and the people around him–and that, I’m going to miss.”