How a marijuana cigarette butt helped solve a 35-year-old Charlotte hit-and-run case

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WTVD) -- In Charlotte, DNA from a decades-old marijuana joint has helped solve a nearly 35-year-old deadly hit and run.

The crash happened Dec. 29, 1989.

Ruth Buchanan, 52, was walking across 5th Street at North Tryon Street in Uptown that day when she was hit.

"Her body landed on the opposite side of the intersection, and that vehicle, according to witnesses, didn't stop, didn't render aid and continued to flee the scene," Sgt. Gavin Jackson with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police's Major Crash Unit said in a video posted on social media.

She died the next day at Charlotte Memorial Hospital.

Despite some witnesses describing the car and several getting the license plate, the case soon went cold. It turned out the tag had been stolen from another car.

On New Year's Day in 1990, investigators got a tip about a suspicious vehicle at a Comfort Inn. Officers determined that the tag number matched the stolen plate on the car that hit Buchanan.

They were also able to gather evidence from the outside of the car, a 1990 Mitsubishi Galant, that confirmed it had been involved in the hit and run.

Officers took several items from the inside of the car as evidence, including that marijuana cigarette that later proved to be key to the case.

Despite all the detective work, the case remained cold until 2022 when investigators received an anonymous tip from someone claiming to know who hit Buchanan.

CMPD's crime lab was called in to test the marijuana cigarette

DNA pointed police to 68-year-old Herbert Stanback but he was not the suspect the tipster claimed did the crime.

Moreso, Stanback was incarcerated in a Charlotte prison at the time.

Still, the DNA was his and so CMPD investigators paid a visit to a correctional facility where Stanback was serving time for an unrelated crime.

CMPD said that after two visits, Stanback gave a full confession.

Though he was imprisoned at the time of the hit and run, he was on a work-release program for inmates where they would leave in the morning and come back in the evening.

"He was working at a hotel one or two blocks up the street on Tryon Street," Jackson said. "So, he was driving that vehicle after he had left his work-release place at the hotel, struck Mrs. Buchanan and fled."

Police said Stanback returned to prison that night like nothing had happened.

Stanback remains in prison to this day, serving out a 22-year-sentence for that unrelated offense.

"Once in a career-type thing," Jackson said. "Very rewarding feeling, just to be able to notify the family."

He added that he was able to speak with Buchanan's son and bring some sense of closure to the family.