Mariyah Ford’s family members say they lost an enthusiastic, deeply caring and determined future phlebotomist Monday, when the 20-year-old from Sauk Village was killed in a hit-and-run crash on Illinois Route 394 in Lynwood.
Ford spent the weekend with her aunt, Tanisha Dennis, as the nearly inseparable duo attended joint hair and nail appointments in preparation for a Thornridge High School class reunion event Sunday.
“She picked out my outfit the whole weekend,” Tanisha recalled on Thursday.
They were driving home from a reunion after-party when their vehicle ran out of fuel, and they began walking to a gas station near Illinois 394 at Joe Orr Road when Ford was hit, she said.
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Tanisha said in the days following, she’s been haunted by the sound of her niece’s body sent flying after being hit by a vehicle on the expressway.
“It makes it worse, because I hear the falling,” she said. “I keep hearing it.”
Christina Dennis, Ford’s mother, says she’s hoping that telling her daughter’s story will aid the Illinois State Police investigation into the hit-and-run crash.
“There ain’t nothing like her — she was my first baby, the original one,” Christina said. She would stand behind me and fight the world if we needed to.”
“I want the person who hit my baby to come forward and turn himself in,” she said.
State police said they responded to the crash early Monday and took Ford to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she was pronounced dead by 3 a.m. Officers shut down the interstate, reopening it at about 4 a.m., they said.
The investigation is ongoing, with police Thursday declining to say whether they had identified a suspect to protect the integrity of the investigation. Ford died of multiple blunt force injuries from the crash, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Tanisha Dennis said Ford’s birthday was on Sunday, and the two had planned events to celebrate throughout August. The two, who also lived together, had commenced what Dennis called a “war of surprises,” each trying to outdo the other with gifts and acts of service.
Tanisha said she and Ford got tickets to the Navy Pier ferris wheel for this week, plans that have switched to grieving and preparing memorial services. Tanisha said she had been particularly excited to rent a boat for the two to go out on and view the city at night.
“She wanted to see the skyline during the nighttime, so she could see the lights better,” she said. “She’s getting older. We do a lot of fun stuff, but I thought that she’d like getting dressed up, going to the city, being on the water.”
The bubbly and outgoing Ford, who Tanisha said was never mad unless her brothers had messed with her perfectly organized display of makeup and skincare products, also wanted to invite family and friends to a “colorful picnic,” where everyone’s outfits and items would be color-coordinated.
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While Ford was “a little kid at heart,” loving Disney princess movies and animals, her aunt said she also was determined to become a phlebotomist, having earned top grades at Thornridge and begun a vocational program in Olympia Fields.
Ford’s little brother, Tommy Dennis, said he now that his sister was gone, he was trying to step up and live by her example.
“I try to clean more because I know I can’t do better than Mariyah,” he said. “She does so good in cleaning, her grades are so good. She had big plans for when she got older, and that got took away from her.”