OAK RIDGE, N.C. — Friends and family of Aliyah Thornhill gathered Wednesday in Oak Ridge to remember the 14-year-old hit and killed by an SUV on Halloween night.
Aliyah Thornhill died on Haw River Road Monday while trick-or-treating with another young girl. The other girl survived the incident.
Ayonna Suttles, Aliyah's mother, said they recently moved to Durham, but she made a promise that her daughter would get to continue her Halloween tradition of going out with the same girls every year in Oak Ridge.
"I no longer have a car, so I wasn't going to take her, so her dad took her out there and she told me that they weren't going to have an adult chaperone to walk them across Haw River, which I understand the girls are aging, you want to let them off the leash," Suttles told News 2. "I just told her be safe, watch your surroundings."
Aliyah previously attended Northwest Guilford Middle School where her classmates remembered her fondly at Wednesday's vigil. Her friends and family remember her as someone who was always kind and loved to make people laugh.
"She was the sweetest person you'll ever meet," said Lyla Murrow, Aliyah's friend. "She was so nice and never said anything bad about anyone."
Jacob Luck, Aliyah's former theater teacher, said she was one of 21 students who chartered the Junior Thespian Troop at Northwest Guilford Middle School and that it was NW Middle the first ever in school history. At Wednesday's vigil, Aliyah's castmates from a production of Grease remembered the bond they all shared.
"It was like losing a family member and (it's) hard," said Zane Campbell, a friend of Aliyah's.
Campbell said he was set to go to the homecoming dance with Thornhill.
"Out homecoming got postponed and she was really looking forward to it and we had to go through this whole process since she goes to a different school and it took like two weeks to get it done," said Campbell. "Once we got it done, we just celebrated through text."
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Aliyah's story is similar to that of Noah Chambers, an 11-year-old who was also hit and killed on Halloween night in 2019 on the same road. Chamber's father attended Wednesday's vigil and offered words of comfort to Aliyah's father.
"My boy needed a friend, he needed somebody and God picked a beautiful one," said Noah's father.
Suttles told News 2 she wants to start a nonprofit, that can teach people about the importance of healing from ancestral hate and she wants to dedicate it to her daughter.
"She will be remembered," said Aliyah's father at Wednesday's vigil. "She'll be missed, but I know she's in a better place and she's smiling down on us right now and her light and her spirit will continue to shine."