Police: Bucks official found dead had been hit-run driver

A Bucks County deputy coroner who was found dead two weeks ago has been identified as the driver in a hit-and-run accident two days earlier, according to Upper Southampton Township police.

John McGhee, 51, who was also a funeral home director, struck and injured a 16-year-old girl on Maple Avenue on July 25 and failed to stop, police said.

Two days later, McGhee was found dead at his funeral home. A son, Brendon, said his father had suffered an apparent heart attack.

Police Chief Ron MacPherson said Monday that investigators identified the car as belonging to McGhee after a tip from an auto-parts dealer. McGhee, who was a deputy coroner for 31 years, died before police received the information.

MacPherson declined to comment on the cause of McGhee's death, and the coroner did not return calls.

Police wrapped up their investigation Friday.

The night of the accident, McGhee was headed home from a restaurant with takeout and had had one drink earlier in the evening, MacPherson said.

Based on interviews, "there was no evidence of intoxication" before the accident, the police report said.

"It could have been more than one drink," MacPherson said. "Our investigation found that he had one drink." He declined to name the witnesses interviewed about McGhee's condition that night or the restaurant he stopped at. The restaurant does serve alcohol, MacPherson said.

Failure to stop and help an accident victim is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to five years in prison.

The state legislature upgraded that penalty in 1996, District Attorney David Heckler said, to deter people from leaving the scene, possibly to avoid testing for intoxication.

Police said the girl and her friends had been drinking alcohol before the accident at Stahl Avenue, and determined she was responsible "due to her inattentiveness."

According to a joint statement by police and the District Attorney's Office:

McGhee, who operated the James J. McGhee Funeral Home in Southampton, had one drink at his Hogeland Road home in Upper Southampton on the night of the accident and drove to a restaurant for takeout about 9:30. He headed home about 9:45 p.m.

Meanwhile, the girl and her friends were walking along Maple when her boyfriend pulled over on the opposite side of the road. She talked to him from the middle of the road, but when her friends yelled to her to get out of the street, she turned to rejoin them.

McGhee, driving within the 30 m.p.h. speed limit, swerved and braked to avoid the girl. After hitting her, he continued east on Maple without stopping.

The girl, whose name was withheld because of her age, suffered injuries to her liver, her ribs, an arm, and her mouth, and was treated at St. Mary Medical Center.

"There has to be a reason why he left [the scene] - I know that in my heart," the girl's mother said. "He was too big a person in the town. Why wouldn't he stop? There are so many questions."

McGhee was past president of the Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association and the Southampton Lions Club. He was active with the Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley and the annual Southampton Days Fourth of July celebration.

McGhee's father, who established the funeral home in 1965, died in January.