‘Jimmer We Love You’ : Loved Ones Grieve for ‘Jimmer’ : Crime: Relatives, neighbors struggle to make sense of how and why James Ward was run down and killed by a Mercedes-Benz allegedly driven by his wife’s stepmother.

The six-foot sheet of paper adorned with roses and the message “Jimmer We Love You” is stretched across a lawn on Congress Street as a memorial to James R. Ward, who died after being hit last week by a Mercedes-Benz allegedly driven by his wife’s stepmother.

The message--written by Ward’s wife, Wendy, and placed less than 10 feet from the bloodstained asphalt where her husband was struck--stands as a sad reminder of a confusing and tragic death.

As funeral arrangements were being made Wednesday for Ward, a 31-year-old maintenance mechanic, police, family and neighbors were grappling to make sense of it all.

“I miss my husband very much. . . . Nothing is going to bring him back,” Wendy Ward said Wednesday in a brief telephone interview.

Police say they are still investigating to determine the motive in what police allege was an intentional attack.

Betty Y. Davies, 58, the suspect in the case, has declined to comment.

According to police records, the Wards had complained to police that Davies had harassed them on at least four occasions in the past three years--incidents that included allegedly vandalizing their cars and making annoying phone calls.

“Nobody really knows why she did the things she did. . . . Even Wendy is not sure,” said a family friend of the Wards who spoke on the condition that she not to be identified.

Davies’ attorney, Marshall M. Schulman, declined to comment on the case or on any previous complaints that could have involved his client and the Wards.

Police said Davies was not arrested on any of the harassment complaints.

Costa Mesa Sgt. Ron Smith, who is supervising the current investigation, said he does not know what the outcome of the previous complaints. But friends of the Wards say the complaints were dropped for lack of evidence.

“Harassment calls come in all night and all day long,” Smith said. These kinds of cases “are a dime a dozen and take up a tremendous amount of our time.”

Davies, who lives in Newport Beach with Wendy’s father, John R. Davies Jr., was arrested Dec. 19 on suspicion of attempted murder after a confrontation in which Ward was struck by her car near his home.

Ward died Saturday at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Police say they will request that she be charged with murder. Davies was released Dec. 19 after posting $75,000 bail. She is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 22.

Neighbors and friends said that on the night of the incident, someone parked about six houses down the street from the Wards’ residence, which is in the 800 block of Congress Street, and walked up to the house.

A neighbor phoned the Wards to say that a person was lurking around their front yard, the friends said. James Ward apparently “escorted” Davies back to her car, said one neighbor. Wendy Ward was the only person to witness what happened to her husband, police said.

Helen Granneman, who lives near the spot where Ward was struck, said Wednesday that she did not see anything but that she heard Wendy’s cries as she ran toward her husband after he fell. Granneman said the paper memorial had originally been placed in the street but that she moved it to her lawn because passing cars were driving over it.

Looking at the yellow roses placed on top of the paper, Granneman said: “I thought I ought to move it. . . . This has been a very sad thing for the neighborhood.”