Accident on the city’s Southwest Side on Saturday night killed a young woman and badly hurt the man she was engaged to. The driver then left the scene of the crime.
Next month, Marcela Herrera and her fiancé were going to get married. The cops are now trying to find the person who killed her while her family plans her funeral.
The accident took place near where South Ashland Avenue and West Cullerton Street meet. Chicago police say two people were walking along Ashland Avenue when they were hit by a silver car that then drove off after the crash.
Police said that after being taken to the hospital, a 22-year-old woman was declared dead. Her name was found to be Marcela Herrera by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. According to CPD, a 21-year-old guy was taken to the hospital in very bad shape.
“This just goes to show things can change from one day to the next.” The cousin of Herrera, Montse Parrera, said.
She had the whole world ahead of her before her family said a hit-and-run driver took it all away in an instant.
“This is a person who still had a lot of life to live who this didn’t need to happen,” he said.
Her family told them that she had just finished working at the Pilsen Tacos Y Tamales Festival. The car hit her as she and her fiancé walked to get dinner near Ashland and Cullerton. He had just picked her up.
“If they were responsible, they could have stopped this,” Parrera said.
Herrera, who was one of six children, lived her life for her family.
“Her siblings were her drive to be more and do more in her life,” she said. “She was kind, outgoing, funny, full of life, charismatic, hardworking.”
On Sunday, her family went back to the last place she was seen alive and asked everyone in the area for any information or videos that could help them find the person who killed her.
“Help me, please.” Parrera told her, “Maybe act like this is something your family is going through.” “Behind these tragedies are real people with real stories, real pain.”
The family wants anyone who knows something that could help them to come forward.
The Major Accidents Investigation Unit of the Chicago police are still looking into what happened, so no one has been arrested yet.
