UNION COUNTY, N.C.,None — A father is pleading for answers after someone hit and killed his 51-year-old son on a Union County highway.
Investigators found car parts at the scene but have not made any arrests after Jerry Blanchard was struck and killed on Monday.
Blanchard lived with his parents in Indian Trail, and they said they were worried when he didn't come home Saturday night.
On Sunday, they spotted his empty car at the Sun Valley McDonald's and called deputies to report him missing.
On Monday, they received a call that Department of Transportation crews found Blanchard's body in the median while cutting grass off Highway 74.
Troopers and the family is still working to figure out why he would have been out there walking in the first place.
Blanchard made headlines after he was arrested in 2008 and sent to federal prison for threatening then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Blanchard was released from prison in 2009, and his family said he was working to put his past behind him.
Before his death they said Blanchard, a father of two, was working two jobs and trying to turn things around.
His father, Jerry, said he's struggling to understand the way his son died. "If someone would have stopped and tried to help was he still alive or not? That really bothers me that someone one would go off and leave him lying there," he said.
Previous Stories: October 4, 2011: Troopers hope car parts will solve suspected hit and run October 3, 2011: Body found in median of Hwy. 74 in suspected hit-and-run
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