JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Visiting her sister’s grave has become a painful tradition for Heather Speights and family.
Cleaning the gravestone, adding trinkets and angels she thinks Dana would have liked, but always in the back of her mind… the uncertainty.
"We don’t really know the exact circumstances of what happened that night," says Heather Speights.
The details of November 12, 2006 are as unclear as the dark, moon-lit night it happened. But what is certain is Dana Solomon’s life ended along Normandy Blvd. near Yellow Water Road in Jacksonville.
"I don’t understand how people can go on and it feels like our world stopped," tells Speights.
The report from Florida Highway Patrol says just after 7:00 p.m., Dana Solomon left her home along Normandy Blvd and began walking west in the eastbound lanes. Heather Speights says she thinks Dana was likely walking toward the gas station nearby to call her family after a fight with her husband, something she had done before.
A witness told troopers she saw a vehicle swerve hard toward the center of the road, then back into its lane and didn’t stop. The witness described the vehicle as a small blue or green pick up with a chrome grill. Then she saw a woman lying in the road.
A second witness at a nearby church told a similar story, he stated he too saw a pick up truck strike a woman and keep going.
Dana Solomon’s husband, Christopher Solomon, is also in the report saying the two had an argument before she left their home. He told investigators he went out looking for her and thought he spotted her walking in the shoulder. According to the report, he passed her then turned around at Solomon Road to come back and that is when he told investigators he saw a vehicle swerve and then other cars stop and put their flashers on.
In the road laid 21-year-old Dana Solomon, she was rushed to the hospital and spent a week on life support before she died.
Leaving behind a little boy, to whom she was the world. Her 16-month-old son, Landen.
Now 17-years-old and a high school graduate, he says he has thought about it over the years, but had to keep moving forward.
"I mean, yea, you think about what it would have been," tells Landen, "I mean I try not to talk about it a lot, but most people know around here."
Heather says Dana was admittedly a wild child, but she blew family away with how devoted she was as a mother.
"To see her change and evolve into a mom and really get her footing and do what she wanted to do," tells Heather, "She became a massage therapist. It really made her plant her feet and think about where she was going in life and their futures. She loved being a mom."
After Dana was struck, the report states her husband’s Ford Tempo and several pick up trucks were inspected, but none had damage consistent with a pedestrian collision. The case was closed, only to be reopened if new information becomes available. In the years since, Heather Speights says she has heard nothing on her sister’s case, but she, Landen and their family hope now is the time someone will finally step up to tell who hit Dana that night and didn’t stop.
"We have so many questions about the way that night went, what lead up to it, the circumstances surrounding it," says Heather Speights, "Our family wants the closure. We want to give my nephew, who I have raised as my son, the closure that I feel like we deserve."
If you know anything about the hit and run that killed Dana Soloman, call Florida Highway Patrol at 904-695-4000 or CrimeStoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS(8477).