ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — A St. Lucie County woman wants to know who struck and killed her boyfriend who was running an errand the day after Christmas.
On Dec. 26, William Brown went to get some dog food, insisting to his girlfriend Shellie Campbell Robertson that he make the trip down Indian River Drive.
"He hated me having to ride on this road out here," Campbell Robertson recalled Wednesday.
With her car out of commission, and her scooter also not running, William took Campbell Robertson's e-bike but didn't make it home. Just a mile down the road from their home, Brown was hit by a black or dark-colored SUV. The driver left the scene.
He died three days later.
"Stopped and left. Nobody deserves anything like that," Campbell Robertson said, her voice breaking.
Campbell Robertson said she and Brown had been together for three years. He was an adventurer who worked for a time on television and movie sets, but he had battled serious health issues in recent years.
"When it's your time, it's your time," she said. "But he didn't need to be helped like that."
Campbell Robertson doesn't know how someone could have missed William since she had bought lights for the e-bike.
"I put several LED lights on the back," she said. "I had motion-activated lights for the wheels."
Two weeks later, she's still waiting for an arrest.
"People ask if there's any news or anything like that and there's no news," she said.
A spokeswoman with the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office called this an "active and ongoing investigation."
The crash comes just months after the county lowered the speed limit on the drive to 25 mph.
Statistics provided by the sheriff’s office show a recent increase in the number of citations and warnings issued on that stretch of road.
Between June and December of 2023, there were 100 citations issued, 86 warnings, and three DUI arrests. Between June and December of 2022, there were 26 citations issued, 24 warnings and zero DUI arrests.
Treasure Coast
2 deaths in one week related to e-bike crashes
Campbell Robertson is now relying on the kindness of others to get to work, and anywhere else. She's hoping someone has some video or other clues that can help the case. Until then, she can only hope the driver who hit William has a change of heart.
"They need to go ahead and do the right thing and turn themselves in," she said.
Campbell Robertson's family has set up a GoFundMe to help pay for funeral expenses.