1 killed, 2 seriously hurt in Highlands Ranch hit-and-run crash

A pickup truck left East Wildcat Reserve Parkway, struck three pedestrians standing on a sidewalk near Willowbridge Way, and kept going, turning a Highlands Ranch neighborhood corridor into a fatal hit-and-run scene and a fast-moving search for the driver.

One person died at the scene and two others were taken to area hospitals with serious injuries after the crash at about 10:30 a.m. Monday, June 1. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said the truck was traveling eastbound before it left the roadway. Later reporting identified the pickup as a Ford F-150. Officials have not released the names of the victim or the suspect, and the sheriff’s office said the investigation remained active.

A witness followed the truck to the Daniels Park area, where the driver was arrested, underscoring how quickly bystander action became part of the law enforcement response. The crash also shut down lanes and disrupted traffic in a heavily traveled part of Highlands Ranch, where East Wildcat Reserve Parkway connects neighborhoods, school trips and commuter traffic.

The case lands in the middle of a broader pedestrian safety crisis in Colorado. In March, the Colorado Department of Transportation said 127 pedestrians were killed on Colorado roadways in 2025, about double the number from 10 years earlier, and that pedestrians now account for nearly one-fifth of all traffic fatalities in the state. CDOT also said more than 70% of pedestrian deaths happen after dark, a warning that has pushed agencies across the state to keep pressing for safer crossings, better lighting and slower speeds.

Douglas County has already made school-route safety a recurring priority. The county has said about 62,000 students start school in Douglas County each year, and that traffic engineers, the Douglas County School District, the sheriff’s office and the Denver Regional Council of Governments work together to protect those routes. The county has also sought regional transportation funding for pedestrian and bicycle projects in Highlands Ranch, including a Colorado Boulevard bike-ped bridge over C-470 and a C-470 Trail bike-ped bridge over Broadway Boulevard.

Under Colorado law, leaving the scene of a crash involving serious bodily injury is a class 4 felony, while leaving the scene of a crash involving death is a class 3 felony. As investigators sort out why the truck veered off the roadway, the crash has already sharpened the question that matters most in Highlands Ranch: how to keep a sidewalk from becoming a death scene in a matter of seconds.