Mourners pay respects to man hit, killed by car in southwest Las Vegas

Mourners paid their respects during a memorial service Sunday morning for Idan Cohen, who died when he was hit by a car Tuesday night.

For many, it was their last chance to say goodbye before his body was transported onto a plane to Israel, where he will be buried.

With too many people to fit inside the synagogue, a small suite inside a strip mall, the memorial service was held in the parking lot. With Cohen’s parents, older sister and fiancée present, pallbearers carefully removed his casket from the hearse and propped it on a stand. Cohen’s mother and fiancée flung themselves over the casket and sobbed while the crowd stood around them with tears in their eyes.

Rabbi Levi Wilhelm recited Psalms in Hebrew, but he was also taking the death particularly hard since he interacted with Cohen, a founding member of the Chabad of Southwest Las Vegas, at least once a week. He will accompany the family on the plane back to Haifa, Israel, he said.

Cohen, 29, had made Las Vegas his home for three years after moving from Philadelphia. His parents were in town visiting from Israel for his 29th birthday. He had taken over the lease for the Jouvence Éternelle store, which sells Swiss beauty products at the Grand Bazaar Shops at Bally’s Las Vegas, and he ran at least one other similar store at Circus Circus. More importantly, he was about to reach a milestone in his life. Cohen was making wedding plans with his bride-to-be, Michal Yosef.

“They were planning to get married in August or December, and he was asking me to officiate his wedding and everything like that,” Wilhelm said. “He was doing well.”

Less than two miles away, the scene of last Tuesday’s auto-pedestrian fatality is still fresh in the minds of Cohen’s loved ones.

Cohen was wearing his fiancée’s pink earbuds while out jogging last Tuesday night when he was struck by a car coming from behind around 11:15 p.m. Attendees of Sunday’s service said he was on the phone with a friend who heard a loud noise, and then the sound of the phone falling to the ground. As of Sunday, the Samsung smartphone was still missing, though friends have gone out to search for it.

The investigation markings sprayed in neon paint on the pavement indicate the car had traveled up the road with Cohen in tow before it hit a signpost on a raised median in the center of Sunset Road on the section between the 215 Beltway and Fort Apache Road. There, Cohen remained while reports say the car continued and turned south on Roy Horn Way before pulling over.

The driver, Whitney Greco, 25, a full-time College of Southern Nevada student, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. She is in custody with bail set at $1 million while prosecutors await the results of her blood test before formally filing charges.

Greco’s attorney, Sean Sullivan, pointed out the shoulder is extremely narrow. Overgrown shrubs where the edge of the pavement ends would have made it not walkable.

“It’s a terrible tragedy when a pedestrian is killed in a car accident,” Sullivan said, adding it was dark and Cohen might have been walking in the right-hand lane in which the car was traveling. Greco never saw him and, for that reason, he said it was not a hit-and-run.

Sullivan said his client has no prior DUIs. On July 7, Greco is scheduled to appear in court again, and friends of Cohen are planning to attend. Cohen’s family will be mourning in Israel but plans to return to the U.S. to attend future court appearances.

Contact Adelaide Chen at achen@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281. Follow @adelaide_chen on Twitter.