Husband of woman killed in Hollywood hit-and-run crash demands answers
The crash happened just before 9 p.m. on Sunset Boulevard, according to Los Angeles police. They say that Erika, known by loved ones as "Tilly," died after she was struck by a blue Mercedes-Benz G Wagon.
Instead of stopping to help, the driver continued, heading southbound on Gardner Street as they fled.
"She didn't deserve any of this, she deserves so much better," said Kris Edwards, who spoke with CBS News Los Angeles from the backyard of the home he and his wife Erika had gotten the keys for last week.
Kris Edwards with his wife Erika, who was known by loved ones as Tilly.
Kris Edwards
Edwards said that he received a text from his wife at 8:59 p.m. When he didn't hear from her at 10 p.m., he began to call.
He says that he tried calling several times, receiving no answer. He then started to watch her shared location on his phone, trying to figure out where she was as her phone's location remained in the same spot for about two hours, even though she was supposed to be home from a pole dance performance at a fundraiser for the LGBTQ Center that evening.
Edwards texted one of Erika's dance students and asked if they were still together, but they told him that she had left earlier. It was then that he says he came to the realization that something bad had happened.
"It's at that moment, you just know when you know. I knew cause ... she would never not respond," he said.
He drove down to Sunset Boulevard, hoping to see what was happening, when he was met by caution tape surrounding Sunset Boulevard and Gardner Street. While standing there, he heard a crowd of onlookers talking about a woman who was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
"The phone starts to move, and I see her little dot moving across the screen, and it pulls into the Wendy's parking lot on Sunset just before you get to Highland," Edwards recalled. "And I'm walking around the parking lot looking for her car and I don't see it, so I start looking in all the windows to see if maybe she rode with somebody."
Still, Edwards could not find his wife of eight years. He spotted the Medical Examiner's vehicle in the drive-thru and approached them.
"I knock on his window, and I say, 'Excuse me, sir. Do you have my wife's phone in your car?' And he looks at me and goes, 'You need to get in the truck,'" Edwards said.
The driver took him to speak with two LAPD officers who confirmed the tragic news. They told him that Erika was likely standing at the door of her car, waiting for the vehicle to pass when she was hit and dragged more than 160 feet down the street.
"That's how I found out," he said.
Kris and Erika Edwards.
Kris Edwards
"When I met her, I knew instantly that I wanted to propose to her," he said. "When I talked to my mom, she said love's weird. It's not finite, it's not measurable. It's just something that you know when you know. And on the other end of it ... I had that same feeling of just knowing that she's gone. I can't describe how it is to feel the world get darker. I didn't need to find the coroner — I knew."
As LAPD investigators continue searching for the suspect, Edwards hopes that people can remember his wife the way he does.
"She taught me how to do for love and not for expectation. ... She chased art and beauty for no reason but to experience it. She just opened my eyes to everything," he said. "She made me to the loving, accepting human I am."
He also shared a message to the driver, asking them to turn themselves in.
"Please come in. Don't do it for me ... do it for her dad who had to tell me that I had her for 12 years but he's had her her entire life and that's his baby girl," Edwards said. "He needs closure."
Family members have created an online fundraiser to help Edwards as he wades through such a difficult time. It can be found by searching for the keywords, "Assist Kris in Erika's Final Farewell" via GoFundMe.
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