Abilene records first homicide of year
By TANYA EISERER / Abilene Reporter-News
An Abilene man died early Friday morning after an assailant apparently ran him down in a truck.
It was Abilene's first homicide of the year.
Gregory Lee Herbst, 46, was pronounced dead by Justice of the Peace Samuel Matta at 4:40 a.m. at Hendrick Medical Center.
Police detectives have not made any arrests in the murder, which occurred in the 1400 block of North 17th, across the street from College Heights Elementary, about 1:15 a.m.
"At this point in the investigation, we're having to go on a lot of hearsay, and we're not sure of all the facts," said Abilene police Det. Jay Hatcher, lead investigator. "Everything I know is what somebody else is telling me."
Hatcher said a witness told police that he and the murder victim had been driving around after leaving a local nightclub when two men approached their truck and tried to sell them drugs.
The witness said when he and Herbst, a structures mechanic at Eagle Aviation Services, told the men they weren't interested in buying drugs, one of them jumped in the bed of the pickup and refused to get out. The suspect was described as a stocky black man, about 5-foot-9 with short hair.
They drove off with the man still in the pickup, the witness said, and later they got out to confront him. After a fight, the suspect got in the witness' truck and fled, the witness said. He added he found Herbst lying in a pool of blood and sought help at a nearby house. Residents called police.
Hatcher said the witness doesn't know how Herbst was run over.
"His face was pummeled and his eyes are swollen shut," Hatcher said of the witness. "He was in shock."
Detectives found the truck less than a mile from the murder site, abandoned and stripped behind a vacant house in the 1300 block of Plum.
Hatcher said police are "beating the bushes" looking for leads.
"We're in the process of trying to develop suspects," he said.
"We feel confident that we will identify him."