Wreckage, uncertainty left by hit-and-run drivers

Christopher Laurent wanted to go into sports medicine and wasn’t far from getting his degree in kinesiology at Cal State Fullerton. It would have been an impressive achievement for a young man who grew up without a father, and apparently didn’t use that as an excuse to grow up angry or aimless. Everything about Laurent, 24, is past tense now, because he was killed Friday on the 405 Freeway in West L.A. when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver around 2:15 a.m.

Less than 48 hours later, another Orange County man was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street in front of his apartment building in Anaheim. David Rosewarne was 55 and had been married 31 years. He and his wife had four children, and Rosewarne’s last act on Earth had been to eyeball his daughter’s new car in a shopping mall across the street before walking back home around 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

We all have our views on why some lives get snatched so quickly and cruelly. Some think it’s all part of a grand designer’s plan; others think it happens because, in essence, it happens.

The what-ifs last a lifetime for the family and friends of the victims.

If only Rosewarne had lingered another minute at his daughter’s car. If only he’d crossed the street in a different place. If only the hit-and-run driver had hit a red light a block earlier.

If only Laurent had taken a friend’s offer to spend the night in his Sherman Oaks home instead of heading back to Orange County. If only he had stayed in his car when it was disabled. Another friend, Gabriel Iribarne, says Laurent probably left because he liked to sleep in his own bed rather than stay overnight.

Iribarne had known Laurent, a 2001 graduate of Aliso Niguel High School, since ninth grade and theorizes that he may have nodded off before hitting the median that set off the deadly chain of events. He’d seen him doze off before in the wee hours when the two were hanging out.

Aside from their cruel fates, something else links the two men’s deaths -- their demise at the hands of hit-and-run drivers. What strikes me in listening to friends and relatives talk about the deaths is how similar their reactions are, specifically how it represents a hole in the story line of the person who died.

It reminds me of families of soldiers killed in battle. As painful as the details are, they always want to know.

“Once his girlfriend and mom found out that the person hit him and left, they were devastated,” says Iribarne, who wants to draw attention to Laurent’s death in the hopes that someone with information might contact the CHP’s West Los Angeles office. “They couldn’t fathom someone doing something like that. They were un-eased by the whole situation.”

I couldn’t reach a Rosewarne family member, but two of his sons spoke a few days ago to TV station KCAL9.

Jason Rosewarne is distraught on camera but says, “I think the hardest thing is we can’t get any closure on this, because the person is still [out there].” He makes an appeal to the driver to turn himself or herself in, so “we’d all know what happened.”

Anaheim police spokesman Rick Martinez says debris at the site of the incident suggests the driver who hit Rosewarne was driving a black Mercedes-Benz sedan, most likely a model between 1994 and 1999. The CHP doesn’t know what make or model of vehicle struck Laurent.

If you’re like me, hit-and-runs aren’t very high on your awareness scale. If so, you’ll likely be as surprised as I was in these figures from the CHP for 2005 (the latest figures available): 102 people killed in L.A. County in hit-and-runs and 15 in Orange County. The comparative injury figures are 10,621 and 1,981, respectively. The total number of collisions was 9,644.

It’s not complicated why people flee. Perhaps they’re not licensed to drive. Or under the influence. Maybe they panicked. Maybe they made a calculated decision not to stop.

“It’s just compounding the grief,” Martinez says of survivors who know a hit-and-run driver is still out there. “It doesn’t allow them to, in their minds, put some closure as to what the final moments were of their loved ones, whereas if it’s just an accident and they have the answer, they can at least start to accept it.”

Life is tough. No, I’m not the first to think of that, but sad to say, I think I’ve written it before. And so it is for the circle of friends and family for Messrs. Laurent and Rosewarne, whose lives ended in an instant and, literally, from out of nowhere.

The what-ifs can haunt you. And so can the who-did-it.

Even in the depth of our grief, it seems, we just want to know.

Iribarne is steeling himself for Laurent’s funeral at the Saddleback Chapel Mortuary at 11 a.m. Friday. He still can’t believe that the basketball he played with his friend a few days before the accident was the last time he’d see him.

Like the Rosewarne family, he just wants to know.

“It’s almost like it would bring peace to a situation,” Iribarne says, “that doesn’t have any good news to it.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.