‘Where our friends took their last breaths’: Bereaved community gathers at crash site-turned candlelight vigil for 3 Baird teens killed by drunk driver
BAIRD, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Hundreds gathered Tuesday evening at a Baird intersection to mourn the loss of 18-year-olds Layni Potter and Madi Buchanan, and 16-year-old Ryan Bilby. That intersection was the very site that the three teens lost their lives just two days earlier when a drunk driver collided with their vehicle.
“We’re here to celebrate the lives that we have lost, the three young lives that we have lost in this community. We’re here to just be able to mourn and to not have to hold it in,” Ryan’s life long friend, Kyleigh Wheeler spoke through tears.
3 Baird teens killed in Sunday morning crash
For many like Wheeler, fellow friend Kaisley Bartee, and Ryan’s younger sister Brittney Bilby, this vigil was the first time they had returned to the site of the crash. Seeing the community come together in support, they said, was comforting. Nevertheless, the gravity of their feelings were often too much to bear.
Ryan Bilby’s younger sister Brittney held in group embrace by friends Ryan Bilby’s younger sister Brittney held in group embrace by friends
Driver arrested for DWI following fatal collision in Baird
“Because it’s where they passed away,” said Brittney Bilby about the ground they stood on Tuesday evening. Wheeler continued, “It’s where our best friend and our friends took their last breaths.”
Pastor David Acevedo with the First Baptist Church of Baird gave opening and closing prayers, as well as delivered a message to the mass as they held each other, cried, and lit memorial candles.
“It feels good to know that they have so much support, but I still cant believe that it happened,” Bilby shared.
Pastor Acevedo addressed the crowd formed at the intersection of West 3rd and Peyton streets, “The day will come when healing will come to us all. But that is not this night. Tonight, we gather here because our grief is real. It is almost as if we gather to acknowledge that our grief is real and therefore our pain is real, and therefore our loss is real.”
Residents residents of all ages from Baird and surrounding counties and school districts as far as Eastland stood around the three-candle memorial placed on the lawn of a home near the site. That homes owner came out to encourage those in mourning to approach the land and offered to help in their time of need.
Wheeler told KTAB/KRBC her first time back at the scene of her friends passing was both comforting and overwhelming
“I went and I sat on the spot, and there was three little birds, and I knew that it was them. I felt it. I sat there and I cried, and I felt him there. I felt him there holding my hand… That was my best friend,” added Wheeler.
Before the final prayer, three songs were played in memory of each teen. The crowd took their candles in hand and congregating around the victims’ friends and family to offer what comfort they could.
Separate funerals will take place over three days at the First Baptist Church of Baird. The first will be for Madi Buchanan on Wednesday, May 8 at 2:00 p.m.; the second for Ryan Bilby at the same time the following day; and the third for Layni Potter on Friday, May 10 at 2:00 that afternoon.
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