California man arrested after fatal hit-and-run crash on Strip

A California man has been arrested and charged after a Las Vegas man was killed in a hit-and-run crash May 30 on the Strip, police said.

Stephon Watkins, 37, of Sacramento, has been booked into the Clark County Detention Center on “hit and run and reckless driving charges,” the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement released Monday. Police said Watkins was arrested in Sacramento.

On May 30, a group of people was crossing Flamingo Road, near Las Vegas Boulevard, just outside a pedestrian bridge at about 3:30 a.m. when a man was hit by a 2016 BMW X5 driven by Watkins, according to police.

The man, later identified as Jeffrey Diedenhofen, 29, of Las Vegas, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Watkins did not stay at the scene. Instead, he continued east on Flamingo, abandoning the BMW and fleeing on foot, police said.

The hit-and-run death was the 70th traffic-related fatality in Metro’s jurisdiction in 2025.

Contact Bryan Horwath at bhorwath@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BryanHorwath on X.