Arrest Warrants Issued in Hit-and-Run

Arrest warrants have been issued for a Bartow County man accused of running over and critically injuring a former Kennesaw State University student last month.

Athens-Clarke County Police have taken warrants out for William Wilson Heaton Jr. 22, of Rydal, and have charged him with hit and run, driving under the influence, serious injury by vehicle, failure to maintain lane, reckless driving and open container.

The charges stem from the Feb. 16 incident in which Heaton allegedly struck 19-year-old Emily Bowman with a red Mazda pick-up truck as she walked along Oak Street.

Bowman, a Woodstock High School graduate, was in Athens to celebrate the birthday of a friend.

Bowman has remained hospitalized in critical condition at Athens Regional Medical Center since the incident and has made slow progress towards recovery.

She recently reached a milestone in her recovery. She was taken completely off a ventilator and is now breathing through a tube placed in her trachea "that provides moist, oxygenated air," her uncle Neal Bowman wrote on the Bows for Bowman Facebook page.

Heaton is expected to "immediately surrender" to the Clarke County Sheriff's Office, according to a bulletin from the Athens-Clarke County Police Department.