Milwaukee hit-and-run; brothers killed, family faces funeral hurdle
MILWAUKEE - After two brothers were killed in a Milwaukee hit-and-run crash on May 5, their family now faces a new challenge: getting their bodies back to Nicaragua for a funeral.
Aquiles Gutierrez Ponce remembers his older brothers, Ausberto and Michael, as cheerful, charismatic and hardworking. Both were killed near 19th and Lincoln.
"It's been really hard and heavy, our family is devastated – my parents in Nicaragua are feeling it the most," said Aquiles Gutierrez Ponce, the victims' brother.
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Milwaukee County prosecutors charged 33-year-old Luis Perez Garcia with four felonies related to the brothers' deaths.
"All we can do now is just ask god to give us strength and the ability to get them back home, so my mom can see them for one last time," Gutierrez-Ponce said.
The family is working to raise more than $16,000 to send the brothers' bodies to Nicaragua, where they will be laid to rest. They started a GoFundMe and placed donations at three supermarkets on the city's south side.
"I came with two brothers, and now it's just me," said Gutierrez Ponce. "They came to this country to chase the American dream, to seek a better life for our family."
Editor's note: FOX6 translated Gutierrez-Ponce's statements from Spanish to English for this story.
