‘It just broke everyone’: Woman killed in I-15 crash remembered by family
After her mom Sherry Carter’s death in 2019, Kayla Carter became a mother figure to her three siblings.
But for the last two weeks Adrianna, Jackie and Christian Carter, along with their entire family, have been trying to make sense of another loss.
Kayla Carter, whose siblings described her as the voice of their family, have now been put in the position to be her voice after her fatal crash on Interstate 15.
“A tragedy like this just doesn’t make sense,” Christian Carter said.
On June 18, around noon, 28-year-old Kayla Carter was driving a white Toyota Corolla north on I-15, south of Craig Road, when she lost control of the car causing it to drive onto the dirt shoulder before it flipped over. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt, according to Nevada Highway Patrol, and was ejected from the car.
Her family said it wasn’t like Kayla to not be wearing her seat belt.
“Safety was her top priority not only for herself but for everyone she loved,” Kayla’s sister-in-law Jamie Carter said.
Kayla later died at University Medical Center. A man sitting in the passenger seat was hospitalized but survived.
Her family doesn’t know who the man in the car with her was.
‘It just broke everyone’
Christian Carter said he found about the crash several hours afterward and described a feeling of everything going dark.
“Us siblings, that’s all we really have out here,” he said. “Losing one, it just broke everyone.”
On Wednesday, Adrianna and Christian Carter sat at the dining room table at the home of David Taliaferro, the grandfather of Kayla’s 4-year-old son Abel.
Adrianna Carter described her younger sister as being super goofy and always trying to make Abel laugh. Kayla was also survived by four nieces and a nephew.
Her siblings said Kayla was an amazing mother who didn’t miss a chance to share photos of Abel. Christian Carter said Kayla would FaceTime him just so he could say hi to Abel.
‘I just want to hug her’
At a recent birthday party for Adrianna’s daughter, Kayla pushed her siblings to take photos with the Chuck E. Cheese characters despite their protests.
That memory captured what Adrianna called Kayla’s young spirit. She said her younger sister was “the prettiest girl inside and out,” whose laugh and smile would win people over.
“She always saw the goodness in everybody no matter what,” Adrianna Carter said.
Christian, 27, said because they were so close in age, he and Kayla went to a lot of the same schools and were always together.
As Christian Carter tried to find the words to describe his sister, Adrianna got up from the table and walked behind him to put a hand on his shoulder.
“I just want to hug her and see her,” Christian Carter said. “That’s the hardest part, getting used to it.”
A GoFundMe created Kayla Carter’s family had raised $2,345 as of Thursday.
Contact David Wilson at dwilson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @davidwilson_RJ on Twitter.
