‘She was a beautiful soul, beautiful person’: Mother sends emotional message after daughter was killed on Halloween
By Kara Peters
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OAK RIDGE, North Carolina (WXII) — Trick-or-treating fun is happening all week, but the big day is Friday, Halloween. For most families, it’s all about costumes, candy and fun.
But for one Triad mother, it’s a reminder of her daughter who did not return home.
It has been three years since Ayonna Suttles lost her daughter, Aliyah Thornhill. A pain she has learned to live with through poetry, letters and bittersweet memories.
“You couldn’t have told me that three years I’d be in 2025 without my baby,” Suttles said. “I wouldn’t have believed you.”
Halloween 2022 began like so many others, filled with excitement and joy.
Suttles sent a loving message to Thornhill before she left for trick-or-treating, not knowing it would be her last.
That night, Thornhill and another teen were hit by a car on Haw River Road in Oak Ridge. Thornhill did not survive.
“It’s unfair. It’s unfair because this is the year that I’m supposed to be doing the graduation stuff, I’m supposed to be sending my daughter to prom, and I can’t do that,” Suttles said.
Thornhill was a freshman at Riverside High School in Durham. She was a straight-A student, kindhearted and heavily involved in school theater.
Suttles walked WXII crews through the halls her daughter loved so much, as she returned to Riverside for the first time since Thornhill’s death.
She thanked the theater directors and educators who helped Thornhill’s passion blossom and kept her name and memory alive.
As families get ready for Halloween, Suttles’ message is simple: Be careful.
“If you see kids, stop. Put down your cellphones for one day, turn them off for an hour if you have to,” Suttles said. “It hurts. It hurts that my daughter is no longer here, but when you realize the impact that this 14-year-old girl made, I’m just proud to be her mom. “
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