Police say their investigation is complete and the state’s attorney will review it soon after a man was fatally struck by a car, believed to be driven by a woman who was livestreaming herself on TikTok.
The Zion Fire Rescue Department and Zion Police Department responded around 5:46 p.m. on November 3 to the area of 33rd Street and Sheridan Road in Zion for a vehicle crash with injuries.
First responders arrived and found a crash involving a vehicle and a pedestrian.
Officers who were first on scene began performing CPR on the victim, who was unconscious and not breathing, according to fire department radio traffic.
Paramedics took over lifesaving measures and rushed the victim to Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan.
Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek identified him as Darren Lucas, 59, of Beach Park, and said he was pronounced dead in the emergency room.
An autopsy performed on Lucas showed he died as a result of blunt force injuries from the collision.
The Lake County Major Crash Assistance Team (MCAT) responded to conduct the crash reconstruction and investigation.
Officers shut down Sheridan Road between 31st Street and 33rd Street while investigators worked at the scene.
Zion Police Department Lt. Paul Kehrli said a 2015 Ford utility vehicle was traveling on Sheridan Road when it struck Lucas.
Lucas was attempting to cross Sheridan Road just south of 33rd Street when he was hit.
The driver of the Ford, a 43-year-old Zion woman, remained at the scene, called 911 and spoke with investigators, Kehrli said.
Kehrli said drugs and alcohol are not believed to be factors in the crash but laboratory results are pending.
A screen recording of a TikTok live video was published on TikTok on November 7 and showed user “Tea_Tyme_3,” who is a content creator with TikTok, YouTube and Instagram accounts with thousands of followers, driving a car when she hit a person.
The woman was looking at her phone when she then glanced back at the road and suddenly screamed as a loud thud could be heard.
“F–k, f–k, f–k,” she said as a child passenger in the car could be heard asking, “What was that?” Another person could be heard asking if the woman was okay.
“I just hit somebody,” she said before disconnecting from the live stream.
Police confirmed that the car that hit Lucas was occupied by only its adult female driver and a child passenger.
The video published on November 7 on TikTok was a screen recording of the TikTok live stream, which was originally streamed to the platform on November 3 when the crash occurred.
The content creator involved has since changed her TikTok account to private and deleted her bio section, which had referenced her being in Zion, Illinois.
After the discovery, Zion Police Department told Lake and McHenry County Scanner that they would be looking into the newly surfaced video and working to verify its validity.
The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office said last month that they had been made aware of the video but they could not comment further due to the pending investigation.
Kehrli later said investigators from the Zion Police Department were in contact with the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office to provide material facts and status updates for the case.
“As of this time, further decisions regarding the investigation are pending laboratory results and the return of legal process,” Kehrli said on November 12.
The Zion Police Department said they were working diligently to ensure that all evidence was considered and evaluated properly.
Police also reminded the public that all suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in court.
“Making threats, whether made in person, by phone or online, toward a suspect or a witness, is a prosecutable crime.”
Kehrli said the woman’s phone was seized and search warrants and subpoenas were obtained.
He also said “lots of paperwork” had been filed and sent out regarding the case and investigators will “do everything to ensure a concrete and solid case.”
Investigators said last month that they believed the woman in the video was the same person as the driver who hit Lucas.
Kehrli told Lake and McHenry County Scanner this week that the police investigation had been completed and the department had “done its part.”
The police department has reached out to the state’s attorney’s office several times to set up a meeting for them to review the case for charges but they had not heard back as of Monday.
Kehrli also said that he could not share any results of the investigation before it is screened with the state’s attorney’s office.
The state’s attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
“Even then, we hold our loss tighter to our hearts, and will continue to pray for what the driver must be going through. Honestly we are trying to find our ways to live, without someone we cherished so much,” said Chris King, Lucas’ son-in-law.
“The hardest part is the mother in law lost the most, and only with lots of time, counseling, and love will she be able to find her way to move forward, without her best friend, her love, and honestly her life. She did so much for him, and to see him erased, is unfathomable,” he added.
King said his family is blessed to have the support of the community.
“He played a great role in [us] finding humor when humor is needed,” King said.
“I personally just lost a great friend, while so many lost much more, hope… hope that if this guy can make people happy, no matter their background or affiliation, at his own expense at times. But we loved him for who he was, and the light that he shone on our lives,” King said.
King described Lucas as the “nicest guy I’ve known” and said his father-in-law worked at the former Piggly Wiggly, which is now Torres Fresh Market, across the street from where he was struck by the vehicle.
A GoFundMe account to benefit Lucas’ wife was created and raised over $2,000.
A user on Reddit posted a thread on November 7 saying that they were watching the live stream of user “Tea_Tyme_3” at the time of the crash, calling it “haunting.”
“So, there’s a creator I’ve followed for years on TikTok. She goes live all the time chatting with her viewers, driving around, acting like she’s got her own reality show happening 24/7. I usually don’t think much of it. Tons of people go live while doing mundane stuff,” the Reddit user said.
“She was driving while talking to everyone in the chat responding to comments, looking at the screen way too much. You could clearly tell she wasn’t paying attention to the road. I remember thinking, ‘Girl please just focus, this is not safe,'” the user said.
“Then suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, there was this loud thud like the car hit something solid. Her phone jerked, the camera shook, and then she just froze. The look on her face was pure shock. She put the phone down, opened the door, and got out. People in the chat were confused, asking what happened. And then the live just ended,” the Reddit user said.
“Later, I kept checking her page because I just… knew something horrible happened. Sure enough, news stories started popping up: she had hit a pedestrian a man and he died from his injuries. A man died because she wanted attention from a livestream,” the Reddit user added.