Matthias Gafni

July 7, 2021

The impact of the crash on the afternoon of Mother’s Day threw Gregory Turnage Jr. onto the hood of the white Lexus before he fell to the Oakland sidewalk. As he lay bleeding, witnesses said, the driver opened his door and walked around the smashed front bumper before looking down at Turnage’s crumpled body.

But rather than call 911 or render aid to the Oakland father, the driver fled on foot, according to the witnesses and Oakland police investigators, leaving behind a gravely injured Turnage as well as his own wife, who remained in the front passenger seat of the Lexus behind a deployed airbag.

Turnage, 41, was rushed to a hospital but died from his injuries. The driver — identified as Timothy Hamano, a 64-year-old Piedmont wealth manager — turned himself in the next day after Oakland police issued a warrant for his arrest, according to court records.

On Wednesday, nearly two months after the crash, Alameda County prosecutors charged Hamano with felony hit-and-run leading to death as well as vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. If convicted he could face up to 10 years in prison. Despite indications that Hamano had been drinking prior to the crash, the Oakland police lead investigator said, there was not enough evidence to prove he was impaired.

Efforts by The Chronicle to reach Hamano and his wife, Jamie, an optometrist, over the phone, via email and at his home were unsuccessful. An Alameda County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman said the office does not comment on pending cases.

But public records and interviews reveal a tragic, unusual and complicated case. Experts say whenever a driver allegedly takes flight after a crash that injures or kills a person, the investigation focuses on whether the suspect was impaired by alcohol or drugs, which could increase the seriousness of the charges and the potential punishment. The suspect’s flight also makes any investigation more challenging.

For Turnage’s partner, Angie Brey, and their 10-year-old son, Miles, the wait for answers has been agonizing.

“We are beyond devastated, and our lives and our hearts have been completely shattered,” Brey told The Chronicle. “I am haunted daily by the horrific manner that Greg was taken and knowing that he died suffering and without a single loved one by his side to try and comfort him.”

Brey called the driver’s actions “a callous, self-serving act of cowardice” that is “too much for my heart to handle.”

She had mixed emotions Wednesday after receiving a call from a prosecutor alerting her to the charges.

“I feel kind of numb,” she said. “I’m just a little frustrated that they were unable to get him for drinking.”

Turnage first left his home around 6 a.m. on May 9, walking to one of Brey’s favorite bakeries to get her pastries. When he found a line down the block, he returned home and prepared homemade chocolate-covered strawberries, waffles and coffee and tiptoed into Brey’s bedroom with their son for a surprise breakfast in bed.

He sheepishly laughed, handing her a fork. The hardened chocolate had stuck the strawberries firmly to the plate.

“These acts of kindness were not unique to just special days like Mother’s Day,” Brey said. “Greg was the kind of man, partner, and father who showered our son and I with these small, kind acts of love daily. He was a doting and protective father to our son, and he was one of the most gentle, caring and thoughtful people I have ever been so fortunate to have in my life.”

For six years, Turnage cared for his grandmother full time as she deteriorated from Alzheimer’s disease.

“He was adamant that she be able to leave this world in her home where she felt safe and that she be able to depart with dignity and love,” Brey said.

After her passing at the end of 2017, Turnage delivered Amazon packages, but the couple decided he should stop when the pandemic hit and find something more permanent.

Most mornings before Brey left for her job as an administrative coordinator at a San Francisco law office, Turnage would prepare her a cup of coffee, then walk to the supermarket to get ingredients for pancakes and smoothies for Miles.

“He always did the dishes, without complaint, just because he knew I hated doing them,” Brey said.

He gave deep hugs, she said, and gentle shoulder rubs. He loved math and computers. He sang loudly when he cleaned. He voraciously followed news and politics. He’d practice baking after watching “The Great British Baking Show.” And he loved his son.

“He deserved to watch our son grow up and to meet our future grandchildren,” Brey said. “Our son is only 10 and he needs his father during these pivotal years of his life, and he could not have had a better example of what it means to be a good man and a good partner than the example he had in Greg.”

Sharon Cropsey and Trish Elliott, both 78, walked south on Park Boulevard in the late afternoon on Mother’s Day. The women live in a nearby senior home and frequently walk the neighborhood together.

On Nextdoor, residents frequently complain about speeding on the four-lane road that Oakland hills and Piedmont residents often use to shuttle between Interstate 580 and Highway 13. Motorists confront a speed meter, and signs along the median remind them to drive like their kids live there.

Just before 5:15 p.m. the friends, who walk with their heads down to watch for uneven concrete, heard a loud crash. Snapping their heads up, they saw a Lexus smashed into a parked car along a small strip of stores on the 3800 block of Park Boulevard. A man was on his back on the sidewalk, they said, bleeding with a visibly broken leg.

Cropsey called 911. A crowd gathered. Someone ran to grab water. A man and woman turned Turnage on his side, as instructed by dispatchers over the phone. Car parts were strewn on the sidewalk.

“The driver got out right away and went around the side to see (Turnage) on the ground,” Elliott told The Chronicle in a recent interview at the scene. As Cropsey spoke to police, Elliott said she spoke to Hamano’s wife, who appeared dazed in the passenger seat.

“She was shocked and I called out to her husband,” Elliott said, “but he was unresponsive. He didn’t answer any of my questions.” At some point before officers arrived, she said, Hamano disappeared, prompting her to ask his wife where he went.

“His wife said he doesn’t do well in stressful situations,” Elliott said. “It was shocking and horrifying and I was hoping against hope this man would live.”

Hamano’s wife called her husband’s cell phone, getting visibly frustrated when he didn’t answer, Elliott said.

Soon, officers and dispatchers tried to find the driver. “They saw driver walking around the corner toward 13th Avenue, turned at the corner near the dry cleaners,” a dispatcher alerted officers at the scene, according to radio traffic reviewed by The Chronicle.

“The driver’s GOA (gone on arrival), but the wife is on scene and she was in vehicle,” a police officer reported to dispatch. Officers set up a perimeter and, according to the search warrant, Hamano’s wife identified him to police as the driver. She told officers they had been celebrating Mother’s Day at two different places and her husband had drunk some Bloody Marys, said Oakland police Sgt. Timothy Dolan.

“Based upon the statement provided by Hamano’s wife, he was consuming alcoholic beverages throughout the day prior to the collision,” Dolan said in court documents. “His intoxication level was never determined during the follow-up investigation.”

Hamano’s arraignment is scheduled for July 28.

“Where is Greg?” Brey wondered. More than two hours had passed since he’d left for his afternoon walk, a worrying amount of time even though he was working to hit a calorie-burning goal on his Apple Watch. She’d ordered burgers for Mother’s Day dinner.

“You OK?” she texted him.

“Hey. Just text me back and let me know you’re good. Thought you went on a walk but it’s been 2 ½ hours,” she wrote.

She called his phone. Miles called his phone. The calls went to voicemail.

Maybe Turnage had decided to drive to his uncle’s house, Brey thought. She went with her son to check for his car — and found it parked down the street. She started calling relatives as her anxiety rocketed.

“The fact that when Miles and I try to call you on both our phones there is silence (no ring tone) and the fact that you haven’t responded has us worried,” she texted Turnage. “Greg, please call us. I’m panicking.”

She called the emergency room at nearby Highland Hospital on a whim. He was there; she needed to come immediately. Minutes later, she was ushered into a chapel.

“It’s almost impossible to articulate the surreal horror that washes over you as you try to process these words and the fact that you will never see, hear, or touch one of the most important people in your life ever again,” Brey said.

When Hamano turned himself in the day after the crash, he “refused to provide a statement regarding the collision and was booked at Santa Rita Jail,” Dolan wrote in his search warrant affidavit.

But neighbors along the Oakland street had provided them with ample evidence. Two witnesses picked him out of a photo lineup, and another resident filmed the driver on her phone, Dolan said. After milling around the car on that video, he soon disappeared, he said.

“I think citizens that came out to help really helped solve the case,” Dolan said.

Police collected video evidence of Hamano leaving the scene from surveillance cameras, and a church’s alarm system captured the crash — the Lexus simply failed to negotiate the gentle turn, Dolan said.

A judge signed a search warrant May 12 allowing police to obtain a DNA swab from Hamano and to search his Lexus. Officers wanted to confirm through physical evidence that he had been driving, particularly by matching DNA on the driver’s-side airbag.

On Tuesday, Dolan got a search warrant to obtain receipts from the San Francisco restaurant where the Hamanos celebrated Mother’s Day with a late lunch before the crash. The bill included two Bloody Marys and a wine charge for $10, Dolan said, for a four-person party. In addition, he said investigators determined the couple had been at a San Francisco golf course beforehand where they ate hot dogs and drank beers. It wasn’t clear how much Hamano imbibed at either place, Dolan said.

“It’s pretty egregious,” Dolan said of the crash and fleeing the scene. “The family are wonderful people. ... I feel horrible for (Brey) and her son.”

In the aftermath of the crash, Cropsey, the witness, said she couldn’t stop thinking of the man she last saw being taken away in an ambulance. She asked her church group and daughter to pray for him. For two weeks, she obsessed over who the mystery man was and what his prognosis would be, until she searched online and found his death notice.

“I was one of those who stood by Gregory on May 9, praying for his recovery, as we waited for the paramedics,” she wrote in a comment.

She explained her belief that Turnage, before being struck by the Lexus, had moved toward the edge of the sidewalk to leave room for Cropsey and her friend, possibly due to coronavirus social distancing.

“I suspect he had stepped to the side to let us pass. I suspect it was an act of chivalry to us that put him in harm’s way,” she wrote. “I hold Gregory in my heart.”

Brey, meanwhile, has struggled to move forward. The summer trip she had planned to Okinawa, to show Turnage where her family is from, is off. Dreams of buying a larger house are gone. A second child is no longer an option.

“All Greg did was go for his daily walk,” Brey said, “and now, for the rest of our days, Mother’s Day will mark a yearly reminder of the trauma inflicted upon us and all that was taken away from my child and I.”

Matthias Gafni is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mgafni