TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – A young woman riding her bike in the wee hours of the morning, in Traverse City last Friday, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Her death is creating fear all the way over here in Metro Detroit because so many down-staters travel to the area all summer long. People living in the Northern Michigan community are asking down-staters to beware when they visit.
Kelly Boyce was full of life. She was married and her first wedding anniversary would have been Monday, but it won't be anymore.
Boyce and her husband Paul Hurlbert loved life, they both had a mutual love of bicycles. Last Friday, as Boyce rode home from work in Traverse City she was struck by a black or silver SUV and dragged. She only lived long enough to give police a brief description of the vehicle.
Now on Wednesday her father-in-law is packing to leave his West Bloomfield Township home to stand by his son's side at his bride's funeral.
"He told me that Kelly had been killed and she had been hit and did not survive the surgery and it was just gut wrenching to hear my son have to tell me about that," said Kelly's father-in-law Joseph Hurlbert.
Friends and family have been listening to police they've been to the scene of the hit-and-run and they believe it was a deliberate act.
As neighbors hear about the incident and connect the dots they believe there's a person out there who is deliberately targeting cyclists.
"Newspaper reports said that Kelly was riding within 12 inches of the curb in a parking lane on a residential street at two o'clock in the morning on her way home," said Hurlbert. "Paul and Kelly both loved Traverse City because they could ride everywhere, they had a car but they didn't have to use it hardly at all."
--Kelly and Paul 's engagement photo.
There have been three hit-and-runs in Traverse City in one year, all of the incidents happened very close to each other and all around the same wee hours of the morning.
Two of the victims lived, Boyce did not. Local 4 talked to police who said they do not believe the incidents are connected. One thing police know for sure, there is a hit-and-run killer on the loose.
"The person apparently left the driving lane and went over to the parking lane and clipped her and dragged her for a block and a half. Neighbors heard her screaming and came out and found her bike and eventually found her," said Hurlbert.
There is a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction to the motorist. Boyce's friends have set up a website in her memory.
For current information about the investigation and more about Boyce's life visit remembertolove.org.