‘She Barely Even Got to Know Her Little Boy’ : Hit-Run Victim Was Making New Life for Herself

Tina Marie Shepard moved to Orange County last Christmas, ready to start a new life.

Things were beginning to fall in place: she had a 9-week-old baby, a new job and marriage plans. Then she was killed--the victim of a hit-and-run driver early Thursday morning as she hitchhiked along Crown Valley Parkway.

“Her life was just starting to head in the right direction. It all looked like it would be in the next few weeks, it was just weeks away,” said her fiance, Tom Wholley. “And to have somebody come along and not say anything. It’s sad.”

At about midnight Wednesday, Shepard had complained of a possible epileptic seizure and had been taken by paramedics to Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo, said county supervising Deputy Coroner Rick Plows.

She was released at about 5 a.m. Thursday, Plows said, and apparently started walking on Crown Valley Parkway, hoping to hitch a ride to a friend’s home in Laguna Niguel where she was staying.

Wholley said his fiancee didn’t make a habit of hitchhiking but would do it if she were stranded.

“She was only a few miles from where she lived. . . . She (probably) thought it was quicker than to wait for someone to pick her up,” Wholley said. “That’s the way she was--independent. She did it when she was stranded. She would do it when she absolutely had to.”

Body Found Along Roadway

A California Highway Patrol officer found her body along the roadway at 5:20 a.m., said CHP spokesman John Garton.

Because of her injuries, investigators think she might have been hit by the mirror of a passing truck, Plows said. She suffered head injuries and other injuries mostly to the right side of her body, Plows said.

Her right arm, which would have been stretched out if she was hitchhiking, was broken.

Shepard had started working about two months ago as a waitress at Denny’s Restaurant in San Juan Capistrano.

“She was new and pretty much kept to herself,” said restaurant manager Scott Kenning. Kenning said he didn’t know whether Shepard hitchhiked or got a ride to work. He said he thought her car was in the shop.

Wholley said the couple had come from Washington state in December after they learned they were expecting a child. They lived together for a while but had to separate because of financial problems, he said. Wholley, who is living at his parents’ home in Anaheim Hills, had been taking care of their baby.

“It’s really a sad thing,” Wholley said. “We had had some problems, and we were just getting on our way financially. She was just trying so hard. Then someone had to come and snuff her out like that and leave.

“I just wish there was some way to find out who did this. It wouldn’t bring her back, but it sure would do something. She barely even got to know her little boy.”

He learned of the accident Thursday afternoon. Later that day he had planned to call Shepard to plan for her 24th birthday, which would have been next Wednesday.