Missouri mother of 6 killed in Sunday Cass County crash, husband says ‘roads were icy’
HARRISONVILLE, Mo. — The Thanksgiving weekend took a horrific turn for a family in Rich Hill, Missouri.
Felicia Fitzgerald, 29, worked the overnight shift as a nurse at Golden Years Extended Care and Rehabilitation Facility in Harrisonville.
She had just finished her shift when she texted her husband, Adam, around 7 a.m. Sunday to let him know she’d be heading home soon.
The drive home usually took her 45 minutes, but with snow and ice-covered roads, it was likely going to take a little longer. However, three hours had passed, and Felicia was nowhere to be found.
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“The last time I’d spoken to her was the night before because she was going to work. She gave me a hug and a kiss and told me she was leaving,” Adam recalled.
Worried, he went to his parents’ house across the street. He told his dad that one of them needed to go out and look for Felicia, especially since he kept calling her and she didn’t answer.
His dad volunteered so that Adam could stay home with his six children.
“My dad called me [a little later] and I said, ‘Is everything OK? Is she OK?’ And he said, ‘No, she’s not.’ I said, ‘Please tell me she’s alive,’ and he said, ‘No buddy. She’s not.'”
His father had come upon a crash on I-29 just south of Archie, and after further investigation learned Felicia had been involved and didn’t make it.
A crash report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol said a car was sitting on the shoulder of I-29 following an earlier collision that Sunday morning.
“There were several people in an accident in that spot. [Felicia] actually came after the accident already happened,” Adam said of the report, which went on to say Felicia’s car went off the right side of the road and hit that parked car, flipping hers over and sending her into a tree. She had a seatbelt on, but it failed, and she was ejected.
“She always wore her seatbelt,” emphasized Adam. “If I didn’t wear mine, she’d yell at me, ‘Put your seatbelt on!’”
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He broke the news to their children later that night, the youngest of whom is just seven months.
“I told them, as best as I could, ‘Mommy’s not going to be coming home,'” he said.
The couple would have celebrated their wedding anniversary on December 10, but Adam is now planning her funeral, which is set for Tuesday. His oldest daughter, a 12-year-old, has since stepped up in a big way to care for her baby sibling.
Meanwhile, Adam’s brother had just moved to Louisiana, but after telling him what happened he immediately drove back to Missouri to help care for the family indefinitely.
Adam had just started a part-time job at an autobody shop, so expenses are a big concern, especially when it comes to giving Felicia a proper burial. A GoFundMe, organized by Adam’s mother, is running to help cover funeral costs and other expenses.
The vehicle Felicia was driving was totaled; it was the family’s only functioning car. Fortunately, after hearing what happened, Cars for Heroes reached out to the family and donated a van.
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“Everybody is doing so much for my family right now. My whole community has stepped up so much. They bring us food every night,” Adam said, who said the thing he’ll miss most about his wife is “everything she did for our family.”
