Man charged in death of tow truck driver hit, killed by vehicle on Parkway West

PITTSBURGH — When you see flashing lights along the road, it’s supposed to be a sign to drivers.

“If you can’t move over, slow down moving through there. It was red and blue lights like the police you’d slow down,” said Nick Milanovich who owns Kendall Towing.

But that doesn’t always happen despite it being the law. In August 2023, state police said a driver hit and killed Husam Shuibat while he was doing his job along the Parkway West.

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“I knew Sam when he moved out here from California quite some time ago and helped him get his feet on the ground here in Pittsburgh,” Milanovich said.

Witnesses to that crash followed the driver who fled the scene off the Greentree exit before getting a license plate number and description of the driver at a BP gas station.

Police were able to identify him within an hour.

“It’s nice to see there are good people out there that will find him and it’s a shame it took this long but hopefully justice will come,” Milanovich said.

But it took months for the blood alcohol test and reconstruction to come back before police officially charged Hunter Crown this week with homicide by vehicle and DUI.

The charges of homicide by vehicle while under the influence, aggravated assault by vehicle while DUI, homicide by vehicle, aggravated assault by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter, accidents involving death or personal injury and recklessly endangering another person were filed against Crown on Friday.

“To take somebody’s life like that his family to get that phone call that time of night it’s just awful,” Milanovich said.

Just this past fall, Shuibat’s name was added to a wall of the fallen for tow truck drivers killed on the job. That memorial is in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

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