A crash involving a truck and an industrial truck prompted a traffic jam on Interstate 805 at State Route 54 in National City Thursday morning.

California Highway Patrol officials said the collision happened around 7:15 a.m. at southbound I-805 and the eastbound SR-54 transition.

As a result of the crash, the industrial truck began leaking fuel on the roadway. CHP officials shut down the transition and issued a SigAlert just after 7:45 a.m.

The area was expected to remain closed for at least one hour, cutting into the morning commute for many San Diegans.

The SigAlert was lifted and the roads were reopened by 9:15 a.m.

The incident is under investigation. No injuries were immediately reported. Check for traffic updates here.
 

Amelia Mary Earhart is long dead after the Lockheed aircraft carrying the female aviator went missing in the Pacific in 1937.

Now, a 31-year-old former KUSA traffic reporter in Denver named Amelia Rose Earhart is set to retrace the real Earhart's around-the-world adventure starting from Oakland. She will take off Thursday to honor her namesake.

"We're ready to go," Earhart said early Thursday morning. "I was destined to do this."

Amelia Rose Earhart, who is not related the the original Earhart, plans to take a two and a half week trip. Her plan is to travel 24,300 nautical miles in a Pilatus PC-12 NG around the globe making 17 stops along the way.

She hopes that by recreating and symbolically completing Amelia Mary Earhart’s flight around the world she can "develop an even deeper connection to my namesake and also encourage the world to pursue their own adventures."

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The original Earhart noted that "adventure is worthwhile in itself" and the younger Earhart said it is "that type of attitude that spurs us to seek the unknown, push our limits and fly outside the lines."

Woody Ballard, who was in Oakland on Thursday, also said he witnessed the historic 1937 flight. "I couldn’t stay away," the 83-year-old said. "I just had to come back. It’s like coming back to meeting the first Amelia and thanking her for the adventure I had as a young child."

Earhart said that since her dad's last name was Earhart her parents seized on the "cool opportunity" to name her after the world-famous aviator.

She took her name to heart: She's been flying for 10 years, and is president of the Fly With Amelia Foundation, a nonprofit that gives scholarships to young women who want to learn how to fly.

If successful, Earhart will become the youngest woman to circumnavigate the world in a single-engine aircraft.

"(Amelia Earhart) said the whole reason she does what she does is to propel the future of women who will fly tomorrow’s airplanes," the younger Amelia Earhart said. "That’s me. I’m flying tomorrow’s planes.”

Track her flight here.
 

An NYPD officer who received an award for shooting and arresting a gunman ended up on a police bulletin the day after the ceremony as a suspect in a break-in and assault.

According to the Daily News, the officer received an award at a June 10 ceremony with Mayor de Blasio after he apprehended a gunman who fired at him in 2012.

The day after the award ceremony, he left a friend's apartment early in the morning, wearing only his underwear, and ended up in another apartment on the same floor of the building in Woodlawn.

A woman who lives there told police he beat her up, throwing her to the floor and punching her in the head.

Cops made up a poster with his image from a building surveillance camera, but realized who he was before it was released, the News said.

He is on modified duty pending the investigation. 

Authorities are investigating after a dead dog that had been stuffed in a lobster crate and weighed down with bricks washed ashore on Long Island, officials say.

The dog was found on a beach along Old Winkle Point Drive in Eaton's Neck Tuesday, according to the Suffolk County SPCA. The organization says the pit bull mix was wearing a collar. 

The crate it was stuffed into had been wired shut. 

Anyone with information about the dog is asked to call the Suffolk County SPCA at (631) 382-7722.

A man wielding bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey and vodka was captured on a liquor store surveillance camera tossing the full bottles at a clerk, who chased after the man and whacked at him with a garden spade.

The video is especially graphic, showing a clear view of a young man, wearing a black cap and California-themed T-shirt, yelling at the clerk, grabbing cigarettes from the overhead counter, walking around with a case of Bud and appearing to threaten the clerk with the booze.

The video was recorded June 16 at Tip Top Liquor in the 400 block of Bascom Avenue in San Jose.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's Sgt. Kurt Stenderup released the video Thursday, noting he had edited out the end, which showed the attacker pummeling the clerk, before being pulled off by a customer who broke up the fight. The suspect sped off in a white car, and the clerk suffered minor injuries.

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"He just started chucking bottles at him," Stenderup said of the suspect, noting that aside from Jack Daniels, Smirnoff and Skyy Vodka were also waved about.

The violence began, according to the video and clerk, when the man entered the store and picked up a case of beer, approaching the counter as though he were going to pay for it. He then asked the clerk how much a bottle of liquor was from behind the counter.

When the clerk went to check the price, the man went behind the counter and started grabbing bottles of liquor and cigarettes, as seen on the video.

“Every time they throw a bottle it constitutes as a new act,” Stenderup said. “Potentially, we are looking at multiple charges of assault with a deadly weapon.”

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The clerk confronted the man, who became angry, and can be seen in the video holding the liquor bottles over his head as if about to hit the clerk.

The clerk can then be seen in the video chasing after the man, going after him with a spade.

“I feel [he was] very brave to help their fellow citizen and their neighborhood,” said Benita Espinoza, who lives near the liquor store. “We need more people like that.”

The suspect is described as a man standing 5'8" tall and weighing 160 to 180 pounds, with black curly hair in a ponytail and a mustache. He was wearing a backwards black hat with "SF" written on it. He was wearing a black T-shirt that said "CALI LIFE" on the front.

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Anyone with information on the identity of this suspect, please contact the Santa Clara Sheriff's Office at 408-808-4431.

San Diego ranks third among U.S. cities for the economic health of its life sciences cluster, scoring high in a newly issued report on factors including research facilities, funding access and critical mass of startup and midtier companies.

The local region placed behind Boston and San Francisco in the latest annual ranking and analysis by commercial brokerage firm JLL. The report was released during the 2014 Bio International Convention, a global conference of the life science industry that drew more than 15,000 people to San Diego Convention Center, June 23-26.

JLL researchers said San Diego dropped one place from last year’s ranking, largely due to reduced demand for resources by mature companies as smaller enterprises have proliferated in the local region.

Higher life-science employment growth — 15.2 percent versus San Diego’s 2.7 percent — helped the San Francisco Bay Area move ahead of San Diego in this year’s rankings, along with a higher number of life-science patents, said Brian Cooper, senior vice president at JLL.

However, he said San Diego benefits from continued prominence in human genome research, and JLL said the region scored high nationally based on other metrics for 2013, including the concentration of its overall workforce in life science (5.8 percent), life science venture capital funding ($640.6 million), and National Institutes of Health funding ($785.6 million).

“Not only are we home to what MIT researchers have dubbed ‘The World’s Smartest Company’ — Illumina — but the region’s leadership in stem cell research and the mapping of the human genome is second to none,” said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., in a JLL statement accompanying its life science report.

Cafferty said a local dip in venture capital was partially due to a rise in local biotech companies going public. JLL noted that San Diego had eight initial public offerings completed by life science companies in 2013, compared with just one in 2012.

The Business Journal is the premier business publication in San Diego. Every day online and each Monday in print, the Business Journal reports on how local business operate and why businesses leaders make the decisions they do. Every story is a dose of insight into how to run a better, more efficient, more profitable business.

 A controversial program that allows each San Diego County supervisor to give grants to community groups has been doubled from $1 million per supervisor to $2 million.

The money comes from a special fund called the Neighborhood Reinvestment Program. It's intended for all types of "brick and mortar" improvements at hundreds of organizations, including schools, libraries, parks and nonprofits. 

For years, the program has been criticized as "pork" by some and championed as necessary community investment by others.

Supervisor Dave Roberts, who each year awards on average the highest number of grants, according to an inewsource analysis of the grant program, made the motion to double the program at Tuesday's board meeting. The move restores the funding to previous levels before it was cut it 2010.

"The economy is improving. We have lots of needs throughout the county, and I made the motion to restore the former funding level. However, I want to take a leadership role in making sure everybody believes this program is open, fair and transparent," Roberts said.

Roberts suggested making sure all the grant applicants are listed on the county's website and instituting rules about supervisors accepting gifts from the nonprofits to which they award grants.

In 2006, Supervisor Ron Roberts and former Supervisor Pam Slater-Price went on international junkets funded by organizations that received more than $718,000 from those officials’ discretionary budgets.

Margaret Dooley-Sammuli, Policy Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego, said those changes should have been put into place before the fund was doubled in size. 

"This fund has had a troubled past. It has, in the past, been used to benefit the individual supervisors politically," Dooley-Sammuli said.

The money goes to all types of organizations, like the Scripps Health Foundation, the Living Coast Discovery Center, the Natural History Museum and the Children's Museum.

NBC 7 got a close-up look Tuesday at the $500,000 Birdwing Open Air Classroom where children learn about bird species and other animals along the San Dieguito Lagoon. The Birdwing facility was paid for almost entirely by the county fund. 

San Dieguito River Joint Powers Authority Executive Director Dick Bobertz said the facility would not have been possible without the Neighborhood Reinvestment Program. 

"We have people who bring out hawks and live animals and snakes and so forth, and it's just a wonderful variety of educational materials that the kids get access to in the natural habitat, where they can see what's going on," Bobertz said.

Three years ago, Congress put a ban Congressional earmarks -- sometimes referred to as "pork-barrel spending" -- in which the House and Senate can add to bills to benefit people or charity organizations in their own districts. 

A 12-year-old girl has died days after she was thrown from the top of a car, where police say an intoxicated mom had her and other kids ride because they were wet from swimming.

The girl, Octavia Watkins, died at about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night when she was removed from life support, Crowley police said. She had suffered severe head injuries in the fall last week and had been hospitalized since.

Police said Kisha Young, 39, let six children ride on the hood and trunk of her Chevrolet Malibu on June 17 because their clothes were wet. The group, including another adult, had been swimming at the Creekside Community Pool.

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Police said Young was arrested and charged with intoxication assault, a third degree felony, injury to a child and DWI with a child. She posted $110,000 bond and was released from jail Friday.

Crowley police said they are working with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office to determine future charges on the case.

Watkins' mother, who was an adult passenger in the car, could also be charged.

"The adults involved are responsible for the children, and whatever happens to them while they are in their care," said Crowley Police Officer CC Meadows.

Neighbors who witnessed the accident were sad to learn Watkins died.

Ellen Prince said Young did not even know the children had fallen from the back of her car until she reached the end of the street.

"We know better than to have kids ridding on our car. I can’t imagine a mother, if she was a mother, letting her kids out of the car and driving like that," Prince said.

Albert Garcia said he rushed to help Watkins when he saw her on the pavement.

"She was totally unconscious the whole time, so that was my main concern," he said. "I know the mom didn’t do this on purpose. She was trying to have fun. But she needed to think this through a little bit more."

Marissa Gonzalez with Texas Child Protective Services said the surviving children are in the care of relatives and not their mothers. A CPS investigation is also underway about future custody of the children.

Funeral arrangements for the girl have not yet been revealed.

NBC 5's Ken Kalthoff contributed to this report.

A gray car went flying into the tall windows of a credit union in La Mesa Thursday morning. 

The driver of a Nissan Altima jumped the parking curb, driving over the sidewalk and into the Cabrillo Credit Union at 7900 El Cajon Boulevard around 11:10 a.m. 

It's unclear what caused the driver to crash. 

No one was injured in the collision, but a city building inspector has been called in to evaluate the two-story structure. 

The car had to be towed away from the scene. 

Texans have something "big" to celebrate.

Dallas' iconic 55-foot tall Big Tex cowboy statue was voted "Best Quirky Landmark" in USA Today's Reader's Choice Awards "10Best." The list also includes two other landmarks in Texas as well as Ohio, Nebraska, Minnesota, Washington, North Dakota, Alabama, and South Carolina.

"Our readers love America's quirky landmarks, and none moreso than Dallas's famous Big Tex, which landed at No. 1 after four weeks of passion-fueled voting," USA Today said in a statement Wednesday.

Big Tex, known as the icon of the State Fair of Texas since 1952, burned down in an electrical fire in October 2012 and was rebuilt and unveiled in September 2013 with some modifications to his look.

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The makeover included a new pair of boots, a taller stature and a new red, white, and blue shirt.

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The second-place quirky landmark was Newark, Ohio's Longaberger home office building, a seven-story building shaped like a picnic basket, the company's primary product.

The third-place landmark was Alliance, Nebraska's "Carhenge," a replica of Stonehenge constructed of 38 vintage cars.

The San Diego County Fair rolls on this weekend and it’s all about cars at the fairgrounds: big, beastly demolition wheels, classic antique rides and action-packed racing. So head to Del Mar, gearheads, where the rubber will burn amid the fair fun.

Friday, June 27

Demo Derby
(1 p.m. and 5 p.m.)
Who doesn’t love a good demolition derby? Head over to the Del Mar Arena and watch as drivers smash and crash into each other until only one set of wheels is left standing. In the VIP class of this Demo Derby, local celebrities vie for the victory and, of course, bragging rights.

Acoustic Friday
(12 p.m. to 10 p.m.)
If acoustic music is just your grove, you’ll love this all-day music event at the San Diego County Ford Dealers Paddock Stage. Throughout the day, some of Southern California’s top singers and songwriters will take centerstage and perform for fairgoers. The acoustic lineup includes Dina Valenz, Kevin Begin, Sabrina Lentini, 22 Kings, Kylie Jordan, Tara Honda, Tolan Shaw and Meghan Linsey.

Larry Hernandez
(7:30 p.m.)
Performer Larry Hernandez will hit the Heineken Grandstand Stage Friday night. The show is free with fair admission for unreserved seats on the 3rd and 5th levels. Otherwise, reserved seats cost between $18 and $35, depending on the section and age of the concertgoer. Buy tickets here.

Saturday, June 28

Antique Car Races
(10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.)
Okay, antique car buffs, this event is the one for you. Spend a couple of hours gazing at the sweet rides as members of the Horseless Carriage Club and Model T Club complete in the Antique Car Races at the Del Mar Arena. This fine collection of automobiles is enough to rev anyone’s engine, gearhead or not.

Fred Hammond
(7 p.m.)
This solo concert at the Heineken Grandstand Stage is the headliner for the 10th Annual Gospel Festival. Hammond’s show is free with fair admission for unreserved seats on the 3rd and 5th levels and the standing area in front of the stage. Reserved ticket prices range from $24 to $35 and can be purchased here.

10th Annual Gospel Festival
(10 a.m. to 10 p.m.)
This all-day festival will feature uplifting gospel artists, including the aforementioned headliner, Fred Hammond. The opening act is Brent Jones. For details about this festival within the fair, click here.

Terracross Championship Racing
(1 p.m. and 5 p.m.)
Check out quads and other little speed demons as they race on a short, rugged course made only the toughest off-road enthusiasts. This event is held at the Del Mar Arena and includes premier classes of racing such as Pro Polaris RZR 1000, Pro Women's, Pro 4x4 Quad and Quad Speeding with Style.
Sunday, June 25

Espinoza Paz
(7:30 p.m.)
This Latin music star will take the Heineken Grandstand Stage on Sunday belting out many of his Spanish language hits. The show is free is fair admission for the unreserved seats on the 3rd and 5th levels. Reserved ticket prices range between $24 and $35.

My Big Fair Wedding Day
(10 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
Love is the air at the fair! This event at the Paul Ecke Jr. Flower Show is an opportunity for brides-to-be and their entourage to see beautiful floral displays, chat up industry professionals and learn how to plan for their own perfect Big Day. Attendees can also taste gourmet catering samples, browse through inspirational wedding décor and have professional “save the date” photos taken.

Terracross Championship Racing
(1 p.m. and 5 p.m.)
The rugged races continue Sunday at the Del Mar Arena with this event featuring off-road rides with the need for speed.
 

Rachel Marom thought she had hit it big when she won a new car at a South Florida casino this week. But just after she won, it was taken away on a technicality and given to someone else.

Marom hit the jackpot at the Mardi Gras Casino on Tuesday night, and with the win, she was set to take home a 2014 Fiat — but for a paperwork technicality.

Marom carries only photocopies of her driver's license and green card with her and leaves the originals safely at home. It's a habit she developed after she was robbed a few years ago, since replacing her license and green card was time-consuming and expensive.

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“They said, oh, those are copies,” Marom said the casino told her. “'We don’t accept copies.' I said, ‘What do you mean, you don’t accept copies? This is my name, my address, my date of birth.’”

Marom said she lived nearby and asked to go home to get the hard copies the casino requested. But she said she never got the chance.

“I said, ‘Please, let me go home and bring the originals. You cannot be so cruel. I won a car. You told me I won a car, and now you want to take it away from me?’” Marom told NBC 6. “He didn’t pay attention to me, and he called the next name. The next name was a lady, and they came and gave her the car.”

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The general manager of the Mardi Gras Casino said a valid ID was needed at the time of the giveaway to win the car, and a photocopy does not count. The GM told NBC 6 he sympathized with Marom and is looking into what happened.

In the meantime, Marom said she is considering a lawsuit.

“The only right and just outcome would be for her to get the car or alternatively or get the money, the value of the car, in cash,” said lawyer David Kubiliun of Kubiliun & Associates.

Marom said she used to go to the casino three times a week but will not go back again until she gets what she believes is hers.

Most people who have crammed for a test know about rote memorization, also known as hammering the same information into your brain until it stays there.

Common sense says that going over the same thing again and again would make it easier to remember, but a new study from UC Irvine suggests rote memorization also comes at a price.

Researchers Zachariah Reagh and Michael Yassa published a study in the journal "Learning & Memory" which found that while repetition can enhance the factual content of memories, it also has the added effect of reducing the amount of detail stored in those memories.

Basically, this means that while repeated interaction with the same material highlights some ideas, it does so at the cost of specifics.

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In the study, participants looked at images a different numbers of times and were tested on their memories of the image afterwards.

What the research showed is while repetition strengthened memorization of main ideas, participants who viewed the images multiple times were more easily fooled by “imposter” pictures.

The study implies that repetition shakes loose details in memory, giving credence to Competitive Trace Theory, another idea discussed by the pair of researchers.

At its simplest level, Competitive Trace Theory says that the more times a memory is recalled, the more it competes with other bits of similar memories, possibly leading to false memories being formed.

The researchers compared it to a brain version of the children’s telephone game.

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Previous findings on memory supported the idea that repetitive recollection lessens the ability to remember things accurately.

Research done at Northwestern University suggests that when a person remembers something, they aren’t actual recalling the actual memory, but instead the last time they brought it to mind.

Yassa, a professor of neurobiology at UC Irvine, concludes in the study that while his findings do not discredit the entire practice of repetitive learning, it should be combined with other memory techniques for a learning experience that really sticks.

 The long wait for a new civic treasure in downtown San Diego may get even longer and more costly.

First announced in November, 2010, the stalled-out expansion of historic Horton Plaza Park is characterized by a giant hole in the ground on the 300 block of Broadway, west of 3rd Avenue.

It’s obscured from street-level public view – although visible from the first floor at Westfield Horton Plaza mall’s north end – by wooden fencing.

And while there's amateur artwork on the fencing, “it’s a big eyesore,” said Spring Valley resident Crystal Williams. “They’re trying to get a lot of money out of the people, but they’re not coming through with the right ideas.”

The late, great Alonzo Horton – the park’s namesake and acknowledged “father” of downtown San Diego -- probably had his share of frustrations and setbacks developing the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

No doubt something on the order of the current expansion project would have ranked right up there in Horton’s pantheon of problems.

It's been a year and a half since a couple of major retail and restaurant buildings were demolished to make way for what city officials said in 2010 would be a showcase, $8 million park.

Now, gas-lit by escalating construction labor and material costs, the budget has skyrocketed to nearly $18 million

And the low-bidder on the building contract has been disqualified for non-compliance with subcontractor guidelines.

While the project is eligible for leftover redevelopment funding, state finance executives could still pull the rug out from under it on technicalities.

In a best-case scenario, officials say the park could still open in November of next year.

But there's no shortage of skeptics.

"It's becoming a sinkhole,” North Park resident Paul Hess told NBC 7 during a Thursday noontime stroll through the farmer’s market on Horton Square, across Broadway Circle from the project site. “I don't think it'll be on schedule, and I don't think it'll be on budget. Just about like everything else around here is these days."

Added La Jolla resident Pat Prindle: “It doesn’t say much for our city government when these things happen time and time again … I’m not optimistic at all.”

Solana Beach resident Halleh Tidaback, who works in a downtown office nearby, said she’s not surprised that a high-profile civic project could get bogged down for reasons good – and possibly bad.

"San Diegans should be asking those questions, right?” Tidabeck asked rhetorically. “They really should be knowing what's going on in our community and be involved."

The city's deal with mall owner Westfield calls for the company to bankroll park maintenance and programming of 200 events a year over a 25-year period.

Westfield is also subject to a minor portion of the expansion costs.

But for now, even with a series of public-agency “signoff” deadlines looming, nothing’s definite except uncertainty.

Decadent, crispy bits of pork, sizzling slices of heaven, salty cuts of cured meat: Bacon. It’s the food of the griddle gods and we just can’t get enough. This flavorful foodie fad will never be over and North San Diego serves it up on the daily. Check out these porky portions sniffed out by Yelp fans.

Sublime Tavern (San Marcos + Del Mar)
People passionate about pork can recite Sublime’s Ecstasy Mac & Cheese ingredients from memory: it starts with the applewood smoked bacon and is made with Gorgonzola bechamel, mushrooms, roasted red pepper, garlic and a touch of thyme. Dig in but don’t stop there. Follow up with the Sizzling Sisig, a Filipino dish with braised and fried pork collar and shoulder. It comes smoking on a skillet with onion, a subtle jalapeno kick and Hawaiian sweet rolls on the side, which give a nice, sweet compliment.

Sea & Smoke (Del Mar)
Chef and owner Matt Gordon has a Bacon Benedict on the menu that you just have to bite. Stacked on top of a cast-iron skillet of moist corn bread (rather than the traditional English muffin), you’ll find Niman Pork Belly, steamed spinach, local poached eggs and a mustard hollandaise. If you’re in to dine for dinner, start with the Artisan Cheese and Meat board and surely select the Chorizo Seco: dried, cured pork with sea salt and mild garlic flavors.

Vintana Wine + Dine (Escondido)
Chef Deborah Scott serves up her pork product on a stick. You’ll find the Black Pepper Bacon-Wrapped Dates speared, presented and stuffed with chorizo, almonds and goat cheese; they glisten from their perches with a chile azucar glaze. If you really want to do it up decadent, order the Lobster Mac N' Cheese, also featuring that delicious Black Pepper Bacon, blue cheese and candied walnuts.

Union Kitchen & Tap (Encinitas)
Sundays are synonymous with a smokey bacon Bloody Mary at this coastal watering hole, so sip and savor with a thick slice bursting out of your beverage. If you’re ready for a fatback feast, order the Bacon Powdered Doughnuts ($7) with a side of Star Anise Maple Syrup. Wanna keep the pork party going? Stock up on the bacon and sausage breakfast flatbread to complete your breakfast. Here piggy, piggy, piggy!

Slater’s 50/50 (San Marcos + Liberty Station)
One cannot boast bacon without mentioning Slater’s 50/50. First off, the burgers themselves are 50 percent bacon, 50 percent beef. From there, you’ll find Jalapeno Bacon Mac and Cheese, Bacon Poutine, Maple Bourbon Bacon Chicken Wings, Bacon Turkey Chili and even Bacon Ketchup. Oh, we’re not done with this pig out. How about a Bacon Old Fashioned to wash it all down with? It’s made with homemade, bacon-infused Basil Hayden’s Bourbon.
 

Trish Sanderson is the community manager and marketing director for Yelp North County San Diego. She leads the local community of Yelp reviewers both online and off.

A man was fatally shot at an apartment complex in El Cajon Wednesday night, left to die on a sidewalk, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department confirmed.

The deadly shooting happened around 8:45 p.m. at a complex at 1475 Graves Ave. When deputies arrived on scene, residents directed them to a man lying on a sidewalk within the complex.

Witnesses told officials they heard two men arguing right before multiple shots were fired.

"It sounded like I heard a bunch of really loud fireworks going off," said neighbor Diane Pintor.

The victim was shot multiple times, including once to the stomach. Medics tried to revive the man, but he died at the scene, officials said.

Investigators have not positively identified the man because he did not have an ID on him, but deputies said he’s in his mid-30s.

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing. At this point, detectives have not identified any suspects of vehicles of interest.

Witnesses or anyone with information should contact the Sheriff’s Homicide Detail at (858) 974-2321 or (858) 565-5200. Tips can also be called into Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

The driver of a 2009 Ford Mustang is being sought in the fatal hit-and-run of a 27-year-old woman struck and left to die on the side of the road near Ocean Beach, San Diego police said Wednesday.

Evidence left behind at the scene suggests the Mustang’s windshield was damaged upon impact, as was the passenger’s side, near the car’s window area, according to police investigators. The car's driver has not been identified.

Police believe the suspect vehicle was involved in the hit-and-run that killed Amber Schei. Her lifeless body was discovered in some brush off the 4700 block of Nimitz Boulevard early Saturday morning, near the Interstate 8 ramp.

From the beginning, Sgt. Art Doherty said police suspected Schei was the victim of a hit-and-run. He said plastic car parts were found at the scene, and Schei’s injuries were consistent with those of someone who had been hit by a vehicle.

Schei’s mother, U.S. military veteran Tammy Wilson, spoke with NBC 7 following her daughter's death. Wilson had just returned from Afghanistan when her world was shattered by the news.

Wilson described Schei as a “beautiful angel” who was smart, “fun-loving, carefree [and] just loved life.”

She said Schei had moved to San Diego to take computer engineering classes at ITT Technical Institute, seeking her associate’s degree. She also moved in hopes of seeing more of her 10-year-old daughter, who lives with her father.

But Schei had recently dropped out of school and was living in a sort of group home, Wilson said.

SDPD investigators believe Schei was skateboarding across the street when she was struck by the hit-and-run driver.

Investigators are asking for glass repair businesses throughout San Diego County to report any orders on or after June 21 for replacement glass for the front windshield of any 2009 Ford Mustang to police.

The case remains under investigation, and anyone with information should contact the SDPD Traffic Division at (858) 495-7805 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477. Tipsters can remain anonymous and could be eligible for a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Meanwhile, Wilson said loved ones will hold a memorial ceremony for Schei at 11 a.m. Friday at Santee Lakes. Wilson plans to receive Schei’s ashes in Virginia Beach, where she lives, and then travel to Panama City Beach to spread her daughter’s ashes.