WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Children of both the victim and the suspect are feeling the pain of losing their mothers after a deadly hit-and-run crash in West Palm Beach in September.
The suspect, Priscila Nicolas Antonio, a mother of three boys, was arrested in October after police said she hit and killed Catarina Reymundo Marcos, who was pregnant and the mother of a toddler.
Friends and family of the accused woman are rallying around her children.
The boys of the suspect face the reality that this Thanksgiving could be apart from their mother while she sits in jail.
"Her children are missing her a lot. Because you know it's not the same thing when you have a mother beside you," said one friend of the accused woman.
Another friend of the suspect, Constanza De La Cruz, taught one of the boys two years ago. The brothers now live with a family member in a different city.
"They had to change schools, a lot of changes in their lives," De La Cruz said.
De La Cruz now visits the brothers twice a week.
"I go and have dinner with them, talk to them, call them on the phone, leave a book," she said.
The boys' mother was arrested last month in the fatal hit and run of Catarina Reymundo Marcos.
As the community rallies around Marcos' children, friends realize two families are now broken.
"Have mercy for Priscilla in order to be released under certain conditions to [allow her] to take care of the children,” De La Cruz said.
While so many lives have been forever changed, friends say they will continue to visit and support these boys facing so much uncertainty.