When Justice Doesn't Come: An Update on Amelia's Case

As we approach the second anniversary of Amelia’s death, I wish I were writing a very different update.

For nearly two years, we have waited for the criminal justice process to move forward. We waited through hearings, delays, motions, and court dates. We prepared ourselves over and over for the possibility of sitting in a courtroom and hearing, in painful detail, about the night Amelia died.

And now, it appears that day may never come.

Where Things Stand

On or about September 22, 2026, Byron Turcios, the driver of the van that crashed that night, was detained by ICE.

On October 12, he accepted a grant of voluntary departure to return to his home country of Honduras.

The State did everything it could to intervene before he left the country and attempted to have him transferred to Montgomery County so that the criminal case against him could proceed. But the courts simply did not act quickly enough.

No surprise there.

His bond was ultimately revoked and a bench warrant was issued. But those things feel pretty meaningless when the person the warrant is for has already been allowed to leave the country.

The motions hearing scheduled for today, November 13, has been cancelled.

The trial is currently scheduled for January 25, 2027. Realistically, I expect that will be cancelled too.

And just like that, after nearly two years of waiting, preparing and believing there would at least be a day in court, we are left wondering whether this is simply how the criminal case ends.

Anger Without Anywhere to Put It

I have so much anger and frustration built up inside me.

And, strangely, somewhere alongside it, there is also a sense of acceptance.

Maybe because I am beginning to understand that the kind of accountability I have been waiting for may never come from a courtroom.

I wish there had been accountability for the man who gave Byron the keys, the van and the alcohol that night. A man who, as we understand the events of that night, knowingly provided a vehicle to an unlicensed driver who was well beyond the legal limit for drunk driving and sent him on his way.

There has been no accountability for him.

I struggle with that.

I also struggle deeply with the choices of the people Amelia considered her friends.

I will never get over watching DJ tell the deputy there was "no one" in the van while it burned in the background.

Never.

That moment is burned into me.

The Questions That Never Stop

After Amelia died, I sifted through her accounts, her texts and her photos, trying to piece together pieces of her life and understand that night.

Some of what I found left me with enormous anger and animosity toward the people she surrounded herself with.

How could they let her get into that car?

Why did they pull her away from the safety of her mom's house that night?

Why didn't someone stop her?

Why wasn't someone willing to be the friend who said, No. We're not doing this.

And then there is the ugliest question, the one grief sometimes puts into my head even though I know how terrible it sounds:

Why was it Amelia?

Why wasn't it one of them?

I don't wish this pain on another family. I truly don't. But grief is not always reasonable or gracious. Sometimes grief is rage. Sometimes it is jealousy. Sometimes it is looking at the people who were there that night and wondering why they get to continue growing up while Amelia does not.

I still occasionally see social media posts from some of them. And through the lens I now have, it sometimes feels as though nothing changed. The parties continued. The drinking continued. Life continued. From the outside, it can feel like one beautiful brunette disappeared and another took her place, and the lifestyle simply carried on.

Maybe that isn't fair. Maybe social media doesn't tell the whole story.

But grief isn't fair either.

I can only hope that somewhere underneath what I see, they understand the magnitude of the gift they still possess.

They are alive.

I hope they embrace that blessing. I hope they do something meaningful with it. I hope they understand that getting another birthday, another Thanksgiving, another Christmas, another ordinary Tuesday is a privilege.

Because Amelia was robbed of all of it.

The Life Amelia Should Have Had

Amelia was robbed of the opportunity to grow up.

She was robbed of the opportunity to become a nurse, to give back to her community, to contribute to society and to discover all of the things she hadn't even dreamed of doing yet.

She doesn't get to change her mind about her career.

She doesn't get to fall in love.

She doesn't get to complain about work, buy her first house, take a ridiculous vacation, celebrate a milestone birthday, sit around a Thanksgiving table with a family of her own, or simply grow older.

Those ordinary things become extraordinary when someone you love is denied the chance to experience them.

That is the sentence Amelia received that night.

And it was permanent.

Two Years Without Amelia

We are now approaching the second anniversary of Amelia's death.

Thanksgiving will never be the same.

It was once my absolute favorite holiday. Now it feels like an emotional obstacle course.

I try my best to navigate what each of my remaining three children needs to make it through this time of year. They each carry Amelia differently, and they each need something different from me.

I also try to lovingly respect what my husband needs as he continues his own journey through the unimaginable reality of losing his only biological child.

And I have found myself becoming more distant from Amelia's mom.

Not because I love her any less. I love and adore her.

I pull back because I worry that my presence brings Amelia immediately to the surface.

When my name appears on her phone, when I send a text, when I knock on the door, Amelia is inevitably there with me.

I worry about interrupting whatever small piece of peace she may have clawed back into her life that day. I worry that my presence rips open something she had managed, even temporarily, to close.

Maybe that isn't how she feels.

But it is something I carry.

Because when you love someone who is grieving the same person you are grieving, sometimes even love becomes complicated.

So, Here We Are

The motions hearing that was supposed to happen today: cancelled.

The January trial: I expect it will be cancelled.

The other people whose decisions contributed to the circumstances surrounding that night: continuing on with their lives.

And Amelia is still gone.

I remain deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who did everything they could that night and who have continued to remain ready to stand as witnesses in court.

I am grateful to the State for the effort it made to pursue this case and, more recently, to try to prevent Byron from leaving before the criminal process could run its course.

I know there were people who tried.

But knowing that does not make this outcome hurt any less.

Maybe Justice Has to Mean Something Different Now

For almost two years, part of me thought justice would look like a courtroom.

Maybe it would be a conviction. Maybe a sentence. Maybe just forcing the people involved to stand before a judge and confront the consequences of the choices made that night.

Now I don't know that we will ever get that.

So perhaps I have to stop expecting a court to give me something it was never capable of giving me in the first place.

Nothing a judge could have ordered would bring Amelia home.

Nothing will give her back the years she should have had.

Nothing will give us back Thanksgiving.

And no guilty verdict could make the empty space at our table disappear.

So, here we are.

Maybe what happens next is no longer up to a prosecutor or a judge.

Maybe it is up to God.

Maybe karma.

Maybe the universe.

Whatever name you give to the idea that somehow, someday, the scales find their balance, I have to trust that there is something beyond the justice we were able to find here.

And in the meantime, we will keep doing the one thing no court, no deportation, no cancelled hearing and no passage of time can take away from us.

We will keep saying Amelia's name.

We will keep telling her story.

And we will keep fighting to make sure that what happened to her matters.