Memorial to Colorado cyclist killed in crash vandalized twice: "There are no words to describe that pain"

Alejandro Acosta was an Ironman cyclist and a father-to-be when he was hit by a car and killed on Lee Hill Drive and Wagon Wheel Gap Road in Boulder County in 2021. Two and a half years later, his family says they've lost what little of him they had left after his memorial was vandalized twice.

Anna Acosta met her future husband Alejandro in Wisconsin in 2007.

"It was pretty instantaneous," she said. He was a very unique man, easy to fall in love with. And that's exactly what I did." 

Three months later, the couple were married. In the years that followed, they moved to Colorado and planned to start a family. In July of 2021, Anna Acosta was four and half months pregnant with their first child, when Alejandro Acosta went out for a routine bike ride.

"Biking was his religion. Biking was his therapy," said Anna Acosta.

Eight miles from home, Alejandro Acosta was hit by a car and killed.

"I relive it regularly. Even though it's been three years. Especially becoming a widow at 36, no one really prepares for that. Especially in the beginning of the best part of our life," said Anna Acosta. 

The man who hit Acosta pleaded guilty to careless driving resulting in death and was sentenced to community service and two years of unsupervised probation. 

Alejandro and Anna's daughter, Evalina, was born five months later. She never met her father, but she knows him. 

"She's spunky like he is and she's beautiful like he was," said Anna Acosta, "but there's a shadow to everything. Every monumental thing that happens in her life, I don't have my best friend to share it with." 

Cyclist Karl Hanzel lives near the crash site. He painted a ghost bike in Alejandro Acosta's honor and put it up at the crash site.  

"I felt it was important not just to memorialize a fallen cyclist, but also just to remind people be careful," said Karl Hanzel. 

"It was full of love. It was something that I could have a moment to acknowledge the last spot that my husband lived," said Anna Acosta. 

She says the ghost bike kept her husband alive, and she cherished seeing the flowers and trinkets left there by loved ones.

But in November, the bike was hit by a car and thrown over a hill. Hanzel put it back up, but days later, it vanished.

"I came back down and the bike was completely gone," said Hanzel. 

A thief had apparently cut the bike to take it, making it un-rideable. Hanzel says signs he put up reminding of the speed limit also recently disappeared. 

"I had been putting things on that bike days after he died. I had put things to symbolize Evalina. I recently put one of her onesies that said 'love my dad' so to lose that felt like the last part of him died," said Anna Acosta. 

Now she's asking how someone could be so cruel.

"There was no reason he had to die. He was very much needed and loved. And now to have the same thing twice, his memorial desecrated, there are no words to describe that pain," she said.

Anna Acosta says she tried to report the vandalism but was told there was nothing that could be done. When CBS News Colorado contacted the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, they said they have no record of a report but are reaching out to Anna Acosta and plan to investigate.