JACKSON COUNTY, Texas – A Labor Day camping trip was supposed to be a chance for Chelsea Williams and her boyfriend, Benjamin Faulk, to use their new travel trailer with Faulk’s father and stepmom in Port Lavaca.
On Labor Day morning, they packed up, heading back to New Braunfels, but Williams’ life changed when they stopped to fix a flat tire on the trailer on State Highway 172 near La Ward in Jackson County.
Williams said despite fast-moving traffic on the narrow two-lane highway, Faulk was able to put on the new tire, and that is when a truck clipped her.
“The truck clipped me on my shoulder,” Williams said.
She recalled that she did not initially realize she had been hurt, and her first instinct was to look for Faulk.
“I look over, and the truck is pulling over, and then I look down at him, and he’s on the ground, unconscious and bleeding,” she said.
Williams said she ran to Faulk and held him just as another driver stopped and called 911. While holding Faulk, she said she called Faulk’s father, who was driving the same route and was just behind them.
She said when the ambulance arrived, first responders tended to Faulk but said they told her there was nothing they could do.
Investigators with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office are asking drivers who were in that area of State Highway 172 around noon on Labor Day for any of their dash cam video or eyewitness accounts. Investigators said two vehicles pulled onto the shoulder about 100 feet from the crash scene, then drove away.
“It’s not fair, because they know what they did, and it’s not for us to go on and not know who did it,” Williams said, holding back tears. “Because I don’t know how you live with yourself when you kill someone; you just drive away.”
When asked what was taken from her, Williams said, “Everything. My person. They took away my person.”
She said she missed Faulk, whom she described as a sweet man who did not raise his voice at her and was just perfect.
Anyone with videos or information about this hit-and-run is asked to contact the DPS office at 361-578-3498 or the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office at 361-782-3541.
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