‘We’re really broken’: Motorcyclist dad dies in Christmas Day crash, Texas cops say
Family members say 5-year-old Sofia still doesn’t fully understand the permanence of her father’s death on Christmas Day.
How could she? Just hours before the fatal motorcycle wreck, John Guevara had brought his daughter her haul of Christmas presents, according to WOAI.
“She knows, but she’s barely 5, so it’s hard for her to process,” John’s sister Veronica told McClatchy. “It was really hard telling her about my brother. She is all about her daddy. She followed his every footstep.”
John Guevara told a friend he’d “be right back” while a group of family and friends were celebrating the Holidays at Guevara’s mother’s house on San Antonio’s West Side, according to KSAT. John hopped onto his sport-bike-style motorcycle at about 10 p.m., Veronica said.
But just after 10 p.m., John was thrown from his motorcycle when his bike collided with a car along West Martin Street, police told Spectrum San Antonio. Police said in a preliminary report that John was speeding at the time of the collision.
He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Veronica says she was among the family and friends who say John’s body lying in their mother’s street after the crash, just three houses away from where they celebrated Christmas the last couple days.
“We’re really broken,” Veronica said. “It’s a huge loss and a really hard loss for us. John was doing so well It just feels so unfair the way it all happened so fast.”
Another friend, Mike Gonzalez, who ran to John after witnessing the crash Tuesday night, questioned the conclusion police reached, according to KSAT. He told the station that the car that collided with John’s motorcycle was trying to make an illegal right turn from the left lane of traffic at the time of the crash.
Friends and family members held a candlelight memorial for John on Wednesday at the scene of the crash. A GoFundMe campaign has also been started, with donations going toward John’s funeral expenses.
As of Thursday afternoon, it had raised more than $2,000 of the campaign’s $10,000 goal.
No charges are expected to be filed against the driver of the other vehicle in the crash, San Antonio police confirmed to McClatchy Thursday.
