DENVER -- Memorial Day Weekend is one of the deadliest times of the year and for one local family, a day that was supposed to be a day of love and reflection, turned into a day of loss and tragedy.
George Journey and his two sisters were on their way home from Fort Logan National Cemetery laying flowers at their mother's grave on Sunday evening. They drove through a green light at the intersection of W. 1st Ave. and N. Knox Ct. when they were T-boned by another car. Virginia Journey did not make it through that crash.
“Not only was she my sister, she was my best friend,” said her brother George Journey.
The driver of the other car, Alberto Gonzales, ran through a stop light hitting the Journey's red car. The wreckage was strewn across the intersection and the damage inside the Journey's car was unimaginable.
“I turned around and looked in the backseat and I asked my sister Virginia, 'are you ok?' She looked at me and took her last breath and I know that she was in a better place and that she was going home,” said Journey.
Denver Police released a report on Wednesday providing more details into the crash. Officers found Gonzales in a car without license plates near the intersection of Federal Blvd. and 1st Ave., but when Gonzales drove off away from police, officers stopped the pursuit.
Less than a half mile down the road is where the collision happened. Gonzales fled the scene and was arrested after trying to carjack another car nearby.