MOLINE, Ill. — Friends and family gathered on Saturday, Feb. 26 to remember Victoria Dickey, the 17-year-old who died in a car crash on Feb. 19.
Dickey, a senior at United Township High School, was the passenger in a car that ran off the road on the 1400 block of 35th Avenue in Moline and struck a tree on the passenger side door. The driver of the car, a 22-year-old man, was taken to a hospital for his injuries.
Rock Island County Coroner Brian Gustafson said an autopsy indicated Dickey's cause of death to be traumatic blunt head trauma.
Dickey's mom, Carol Brown, said she was expecting to graduate United Township in early March.
"She was a beautiful child," Brown said. "Victoria was a good kid. Victoria loved sports. She had a very good heart. She was a very sweet kid."
She added that Dickey loved playing basketball and video games.
"She loved music," her sister Gabrielle Williams said. "That was our thing. Whenever we got in the car, she's like, 'I gotta control the music because you don't be playing good stuff.'"
"I just feel like this is my best friend gone, like that was the only person I had," her girlfriend of a year Almya Mayweathers said. "Anything I went through at home, I just ran to her. Like she was just the only person I had."
Dickey's teacher Ragan Ross remembers her as "a character" in her class. Ross recalled watching her doodle during class and buying her a journal, encouraging her to keep drawing and writing.
Like many high schoolers, Dickey was still figuring out what she wanted to do after graduation.
"She'd show me some of her sketches, and then I told her, 'What do you want to do after school?'" Ross said. "And she said, 'Well, I'm kind of interested in criminal justice. I want to be a cop. I want to be a good cop.' Or she wants to be a detective. And so I told her, maybe you can be a sketch artist."
Dozens of Dickey's friends and family came together on Saturday, Feb. 26 to celebrate her life and release balloons in her honor. The crowd filled the entire street, hugging, crying and saying goodbye.
"This is indescribable," Williams said. "She touched so many people. She was loved by so many. We're definitely appreciative to everybody, all the family, the friends, the school, the teachers."
Williams said everyone is trying to find ways to console one another, find peace and release their anger and frustration. But she's not sure they'll ever find peace.
"We don't know how to come from this as a family, as sisters, as brothers. We don't know. This is hard. We do feel like she was taken from us prematurely," she said. "She was full of life and full of energy. And she had this smile. This smile, I just keep looking for this smile, and I can't find the smile. I'm just waiting to see her smile."
The Moline Police Department announced Thursday, Feb. 24 it launched a criminal investigation into the car crash. Upon completion of the investigation, it will be turned over to the Rock Island County State's Attorney for review.
No details have been released regarding the investigation.
"I can't rest until I have peace," Brown said. "I'm not going to rest until I figure out what happened to my daughter."