Relatives of a Memphis high school senior killed after getting hit by a car while walking home are mourning her sudden death.
On Tuesday, Dec. 6, while walking in the turning lane in the Frayser section in Bluff City, 18-year-old Aaliyah Dalton was hit and killed around 5:30 p.m. The young woman died within 24 hours of two other pedestrians who had been killed on the same road, according to WREG.
Family members say the accident happened on Range Line Road, only three short minutes from her home. Dalton reportedly was struck while walking in the turn lane of the road.
Action News 5 reports the Junior ROTC cadet was in her last year at Trezevant High School, and at the time of the accident, she was on her way home from an after-school tutoring program.
Felicia Brown, Dalton’s guardian, said the last communication the two had was a text to tell her she would be late, and after the additional study help, she would walk home.
“She never came home, so I thought maybe she’s hanging out with relatives or whatever,” she said.
Emergency first responders did not contact the family after she was struck.
Relatives said the teen had her ID and phone, but still, they were not notified about the accident or her whereabouts. This prompted the family to form a search party and look all over the area for her, starting first at the school and attempting to trace her steps.
“One of the students said there was an accident after school. Me and my sister and her mother went to the precinct, and they asked her some questions to identify the body, and it was her,” Brown stated.
Sirella Taylor, Aaliyah Dalton’s aunt, said, “I was hoping to find her, but I didn’t want to find her that way.”
“She a baby … she had her whole life ahead of her, and she was working to achieve every goal she wanted, and it was just taken,” Taylor continued. “She was just walking home.”
