HOUSTON – Friends and family gathered together to remember a man who was hit and killed by an apparent drunk driver who went the wrong way in North Houston earlier this week.
Devin Wold, 34, was killed in the deadly crash on N. Shepherd near West 7th Street on Nov. 30, at 11:35 p.m.
The wrong-way driver, 32-year-old Sherry Ann Parsons, has been charged with intoxicated manslaughter.
Wold’s friends told KPRC 2′s Candace Burns that he was brilliant and witty. They say he loved art and philosophy, and they are heartbroken by his death.
“Pretty much, every minute of every day that I’m home, I think about Devin right now,” said friend Patrick Mikkelson.
“He was a really good friend,” William Hiltebeitel shared with Burns.
“Devin had a brilliant heart, and I think that is the thing that I loved most about him,” said Taylor Rhoades. “I still have moments where it doesn’t feel real.”
Police said a white Mitsubishi Outlander, driven by Parsons, was going the wrong way and crashed into the Volkswagen Jetta, which was being driven by Wold. Wold was reported dead on the scene.
“He had so much to live for. He was a business consultant, and he was finally having a lot of success in his career and personal life, and everything was really on a great trajectory,” said Hiltebeitel. “He had just gotten a dog, Sol, and Sol was one of the most important things to him. Actually, he was coming back to take care of Sol when this accident happened.”
All of Wold’s friends tell Burns that they are in disbelief.
“It’s hard to go the wrong way on the road. She must have been really impaired, significantly,” said John Dalton. “I’m just really angry.”
They said that Devin’s death was preventable.
“Someone makes a bad decision, and he’s no longer with us,” said Dalton.
“Definitely in this day and age, with all the options available to you, even if you have that one extra drink and think it’s going to affect you the way it did—Uber, Lyft, call a friend. Anything, at this point, everything was cheaper than this,” said Mikkelson.
There is no booking photo of Parsons because she is still in the hospital. Houston police say that once she is released from the hospital, she’ll be taken to the Harris County Jail.