A Los Angeles County family is desperately searching for answers after their loved one, a young mother of four children, was killed in a hit-and-run crash on the 118 Freeway in Mission Hills early Friday morning.
“A lot of things don’t make sense,” said Celeste Miranda.
Her younger sister, 33-year-old Ruby Ortiz, was found dead on a slope off the westbound side of the freeway at around 6:40 a.m. in what California Highway Patrol officers have reported as a hit-and-run incident. Miranda says they’re not sure what Ortiz was doing on the freeway that morning.
“Somebody did contact me saying that they had seen her on that night of, about 1:30, 1:25 in the morning,” Miranda said. “In a car with another person, a gentleman, which we believe it was her partner. My mom had seen this person.”
Family members have no way of contacting him, but they believe he has answers they’re desperately searching for.
“We just want to know, talk to him. We want him to come and tell us, were you the last person she was with? Can you come and tell us more? We just want answers,” Miranda said.
She says the family has considered the possibility that someone may have wanted to hurt Ortiz, who leaves behind children between 4 and 13 years old.
“There’s a lot of thoughts that are going through our heads. We don’t want to think that is what happened, but we do believe in our hearts that there was more to it,” Miranda said.
A friend of the family has established a GoFundMe to help Ortiz’s children. It can be found by searching for the keywords: “In Loving Memory of Ruby Modesta Ortiz.”
“She was a strong, strong mother. Young, strong mother. She was the outspoken one of the family; she was like a free spirit,” Miranda said. “Happy free spirit. The kids were her major priority.”
CHP investigators are still probing the incident, working to determine how Ortiz ended up on the freeway and what led to her death.