Google used to identify 1993 hit-and-run victim in Yakima, Washington

Friday, October 8th 2004, 11:24 am

By: News On 6

MOXEE, Wash. (AP) _ The Internet search engine Google is being praised for helping determine the identity of a man killed in an apparent hit-and-run accident more than ten years ago.

A Washington State Patrol detective used the Web site for about a week before identifying the victim as David Lewis of Amarillo, Texas.

By using Google he came across a distinctive pair of glasses in a photograph on the Web sites of the Texas Department of Public Safety and an international volunteer organization devoted to solving unidentified cases.

On Monday, officials in Texas confirmed a D-N-A match between the long unidentified pedestrian and Lewis' mother.

The man's brother praised the detective saying if it weren't him the family would still be "thinking he's alive and going to give us a call one of these days."