Mystery Of Interstate-35W Cross Solved Before Removal
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FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) - Family members of a 2014 traffic crash victim will receive his highway memorial cross Friday, one that had piqued the interest of hundreds of thousands of passing motorists. It stood alone as construction went on around it until it finally had to be moved Wednesday.
Isaac Trujillo was just 21 years old. He and his twin brother were driving down Interstate-35W early one morning last May when Isaac lost control and crashed his Pontiac Grand Prix. He died in the hospital hours later.
He was an inspiration," his aunt Lidia Villalobos told CBS 11 News late Thursday. "He had a good attitude, always smiling and it doesn't matter is he was going through things himself... not hearing his laugh. It's been really hard."
Grieving family members placed a cross at the crash site as a memorial; it soon became a mystery to passing motorists negotiating the freeway reconstruction.
The cross bears evidence of the life of Isaac Trujillo to 200,000 drivers a day. But progress and construction changed all that.
The widening of the traffic-heavy north Fort Worth freeway is forcing the marker's removal. Construction crews have worked around it for weeks but have run out of options.
Normally Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) protocol allows roadside memorials to be displayed for two years. Then it safely removes and stores them while trying to locate family members to see if they wish to keep them.
"It's been hard on everybody," Villalobos said, "everybody's been hurt different ways. Everybody misses him, of course."
It's a bittersweet decision. Isaac's mother tells me she cannot bear to even drive by the location and doesn't want the cross as a reminder. But his grandfather says he wants the memorial for himself and will pick it up tomorrow.
Villalobos says the family's faith helps them over the hard times. "We never had such a close family or relative of us die before," she related, dabbing her eyes. "It is our hope that we will see Isaac once again."
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