Fresno County seeks help locating family of fatal crash victim

Fresno County coroner staff are still trying to locate the family of a 42-year-old Fresno man killed in a crash at Olive Avenue and the Highway 99 off-ramp, and they are asking the public to help close the gap. The appeal centers on Alejandro Gallardo, whose death left officials with a body to identify, records to check and next-of-kin notification still unresolved.

Gallardo was struck while walking in a marked crosswalk on the Highway 99 off-ramp at Olive Avenue just before 10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 1, 2026. He was taken to a Fresno hospital and later died from his injuries. Local reporting identified him as a Fresno resident, but the coroner’s office said staff were still unable to reach family members after searching numerous personal records.

That search falls squarely within the coroner’s job. The Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office says it is legally responsible for identifying the deceased, notifying next of kin or a legal representative, and protecting the estate of the deceased until it can be turned over to legal heirs or the Public Administrator. Fresno County also says the Sheriff serves as Coroner under California Government Code section 27491, which is why the office handles both death investigations and family notification in cases like Gallardo’s.

Officials are asking anyone with information that could help identify or contact Gallardo’s relatives to call the Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office at 559-600-3400 or email coroner@fresnosheriff.org. The public appeal is part of the office’s effort to complete the notification process after the crash scene has been cleared and the victim has already been named.

The case also lands in the middle of a wider pedestrian safety problem in Fresno. Local reporting last year said the city recorded 22 pedestrian fatalities in 2023 and 28 in 2022, numbers that kept attention on walkways and freeway-adjacent crossings where drivers and pedestrians converge. State and university crash-data tools, updated quarterly, continue to track pedestrian and bicycle collisions by county, including Fresno County.

The Olive Avenue crossing at Highway 99 is one of the city’s high-traffic edges, where freeway ramps, turning vehicles and pedestrian movement overlap. In Gallardo’s case, the crash did not end when emergency crews left the scene, because the county still had a basic duty left to finish: finding the family and notifying them directly.