The case of the missing leg has been solved.
Mesa police say that the once-missing leg of a man who was killed during a hit-and-run accident early Sunday morning has been recovered -- on top of a roof 160 feet away from the point of impact.
"We believe this is the result of the impact of the collision," Mesa police spokesman Ed Wessing tells New Times.
Early Sunday morning, about 2:30 a.m., cops were called to the 400 block of West Broadway Road after two men reportedly were hit by a car.
The responding officers found the two 25-year-old men unresponsive in the street with life-threatening injuries.
They were taken to Scottsdale Osborne Hospital where one of them died -- his leg, however, never made it to the hospital.
Detectives suspected the leg possibly could be with the vehicle that hit the two men, but that theory was put to rest when the driver of the car, 27-year-old Jose DeJesus Padilla-Rodriguez, was arrested the day after the wreck -- sans severed leg.
Detectives continued to look for the leg, and this afternoon started a wider search of the area where the wreck occurred, which included the roof of Uncle Bob's Storage at 545 West Broadway Road.
Once on the roof, detectives found the leg, which at this point, has been baking in 100-plus-degree heat for the past four days.
Padilla-Rodriguez was booked on two counts of failure to stop at a serious injury or fatal collision, and two counts of failure to remain at a serious injury or fatal collision.
