DESTIN — For the first time in 11 years, Belinda Meadors was not able to visit her daughter’s memorial along U.S. Highway 98.
“It’s really breaking my heart,” Meadors said Saturday.
But her friends arranged items she had mailed to be placed at the site across from Big Kahuna’s. They also plan to pray there at 8 p.m., the time 15-year-old Shelly Meadors from Louisville, Ky., was hit by a pickup truck Aug. 10, 2002.
Kaye Knab, who worked at the Holiday Inn where Shelly was staying at the time, said she always thinks of the little girl who “looked like Elizabeth Taylor as a kid.”
Each time Shelly would get a water from the outside bar where Knab worked, she’d leave $1.
Finally, Knab told her she didn’t have to tip; that it was her job.
“She told me ‘My momma always told me to tip. My momma raised us on tips,’ ” Knab recalled.
Knab left work early the night Shelly was struck. As a mother of four daughters, she can’t imagine dealing with such a loss.
Knab helped set up Shelly’s memorial Saturday. “I said a prayer for her,” she said.
The night of the accident, an eastbound pickup swerved onto the sidewalk where Shelly and two friends were waiting to cross the road. Two of the girls were hit. One survived but Shelly died the following day.
The driver fled the scene.
“I would have liked to have seen her grow up, go to college, get married,” Meadors said. “Everything a momma wants for her daughter.”
The hit-and-run has been designated a cold case, which gives Meadors hope. There are leads and deputies are rerunning forensic tests, she said.
“(Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies) are going over the case and starting from the beginning,” Meadors said.
Watch a Sheriff's Office Cold Case Chronicle. >>
Shelly volunteered at her church, in a kitchen for underprivileged children and at an animal shelter. She also was an organ donor, and saved the lives of at least five people after she died, Meadors said.
She has never lost hope that there will be justice for her daughter.
“I know there’s someone out there who knows something,” she said. “Any little bit helps. Any help could lead us into the right direction.”
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call the Sheriff’s Office at 651-7400 or Emerald Coast Crime Stoppers at 863-TIPS.