Another Alberta gas station attendant killed in gas and dash near Thorsby

RCMP say the man died at the scene. Mounties are still searching for both the van and the driver. (Google Maps)

THORSBY, Alta.— Witnesses tell CTV News a gas station attendant has been killed after what police call a “gas and dash” at a fuel station in Thorsby, Alta.

RCMP Sgt. Corey Kyle says the investigation is in its early stages but confirms it appears someone was speeding away from the Fas Gas station without paying for their fuel when the fatality occurred.

It happened Friday afternoon at about 4 p.m.

Kyle says a number of investigators are on scene and a crime scene analyst is reconstructing what happened.

The unnamed witness from a nearby business tells CTV he heard yelling and when he went outside, he saw a large white cube van driving away with the gas station employee hanging onto the passenger side mirror.

The witness says the van headed north for a distance before swerving, tossing the man from its side before running over him.

RCMP say the man died at the scene. Mounties are still searching for both the van and the driver.

Ironically, it was not the only gas and dash the detachment dealt with on Friday.

They said in a news release they had arrested two people in a gas and dash involving a school bus that had earlier been stolen from the Rimbey area.

They also said the suspects are believed to have stolen a truck from a man who stopped to assist them on the highway, and to have stabbed another civilian whose car they tried to steal.

That driver suffered a cut which was treated on scene.

In August, a 22-year-old man was sentenced to 11 years in prison for a gas-and-dash that killed Calgary gas-station worker Maryam Rashidi, 35.

She was run over by Joshua Cody Mitchell when she tried to stop him from taking off without paying for $113 worth of fuel.

Rashidi and her husband had come to Canada from Iran in 2014. She had been working at the Centex gas station for just two weeks after being laid off from her engineering job during Calgary’s economic downturn.

Mitchell was convicted of manslaughter, hit and run and theft.