A young mother died one day after Christmas after she was struck by two vehicles while crossing a street in Nashville.
In a press release shared by the Metro Nashville Police Department on Saturday, Dec. 27, authorities identified 20-year-old Kira Phillips as the pedestrian who was hit on Bell Road on Friday, Dec. 26, at about 5:40 p.m. local time. Her name had initially been withheld while officers notified her next of kin.
Investigators said Phillips was in the continuous left-turn lane on Bell Road when she was struck by a driver in a northbound Nissan Versa who was turning left onto Rice Road. Police said the impact threw her into another lane, where she was hit by a second vehicle.
“She died at the scene. Both drivers stayed on scene and showed no signs of impairment,” police said in the release.
Nashville’s WSMV spoke with Phillips’ family and friends, including Lateeka Brooks — the mother of Phillips’ boyfriend — who said they didn’t realize Phillips had been killed until the next day.
“She had went missing,” Brooks said. “We didn’t know anything. We were trying to reach out to her, contact her. We just was kind of nervous, didn’t know what was going on because it’s not normal for her to just disappear like that.”
Loved ones told the station Phillips had been planning her daughter’s first birthday party, which was just weeks away.
“She was planning to go all out for her baby’s birthday party,” Brooks said.
“Kira loved her baby with everything in her. She lived for her baby,” her friend Tawanta Crutcher told the news station.
Crutcher said the loss was still hard to process, adding that it “happened so suddenly” and left those who knew Phillips in “shock.”
Friends also described Phillips as a hardworking, devoted mother who did whatever it took to support her child.
“She loved her mom and her little sisters,” Crutcher said in an on-camera interview. “Kira, she always had a smile on her face, and that’s one thing that’s gonna be missed the most, her quiet smile.”
