NORFOLK, Va. — A Norfolk community is mourning and demanding answers to help solve their friend's death.
Police said a driver hit 62-year-old Eric Henderson Wednesday evening and didn’t stop. Now, the kitchen inside The Green Onion on Colley Avenue feels empty.
“We just are, kind of at a loss,” said The Green Onion General manager Randy Hobbs.
On Thursday, Hobbs said he got a call that Henderson, a chef at the restaurant, died in a hit and run accident.
He shut the restaurant down that day.
“My staff fell apart,” Hobbs said. “And we needed time to regroup and they needed time to take a deep breath and figure out what happened.”
Norfolk Police said Wednesday night around 5:30, Henderson tried crossing the street on Monticello Avenue, near St. Paul’s Boulevard. Someone hit him and kept going.
Investigators said another person found Henderson lying on the side of the road.
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“To me, this was needless, useless, somebody wasn’t paying attention,” Hobbs said. “Somebody should have stopped.”
Hobbs said Henderson first came to work at The Green Onion last fall.
“He became part of the family here,” Hobbs said. “He fit in and everybody loved him from the moment he started working here.”
Henderson’s only request: to have off every Wednesday.
“He never worked Wednesday nights because he always had church and he never worked Sunday mornings because he went to church,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs said Henderson lived close by and walked everywhere.
“Just an awesome man,” Hobbs said. “Every day when he would leave, he would say goodbye to all of the servers, thank everybody, say, 'Y'all have a blessed day.'”
He said Henderson is from Philadelphia and leaves behind a daughter and a sister.
"They are just trying to figure out why, what happened,” Hobbs said.
Now, he’s pleading for people in the community to call police if they know anything about what happened.
“Hopefully they can find something, or some answers, because it is even harder not knowing why, or who,” Hobbs said. “It is a shame that a man in the community could be hit by somebody, die and nobody knows nothing.”
Police said they are still searching for the driver who left the scene. Detectives are looking for a four-door gray or silver Infiniti sedan with dark tinted windows. Police said the front of the car, and the windshield will have damage.
They urge anyone with information ubmit an anonymous tip at p3tips.com/1126 or call @nfvacrimeline @ 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.