A man who lay in front of a car because he didn’t want a friend to leave his birthday party died after being run over early Sunday morning, San Diego police said.

According to the police report, Jonathan Carlyle Merkley of Garden Grove was celebrating his 34th birthday and drinking alcohol with friends at the Staybridge Suites hotel at 6639 Mira Mesa Blvd. in Sorrento Valley.

Around 12:30 a.m. a female friend decided to leave the party and started to drive away in her white BMW.

Merkley, who apparently did not want the friend to leave, lay down on the ground in front of the moving vehicle. The woman ran over him and then drove away, witnesses said.


Merkley suffered major trauma to the chest and was transported to Scripps Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1:22 a.m., according to the San Diego County coroner’s office website.

The woman was not arrested, and the investigation is ongoing.

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