‘He had such a good heart.’ North Texas hit-and-run victim’s family speaks about his death

Family members of the 45-year-old man who was killed in a hit-and-run accident in west Dallas on Saturday night say he always had a smile and loved helping others.

Terry Ivory was walking along the Interstate 30 service road near Cockrell Hill Road when he was struck by a car, officials said. Ivory crashed through the windshield and landed in the passenger seat. The driver, 31-year-old Nestor Lujan Flores from Arlington, drove 38 miles to White Settlement with Ivory’s body beside him, according to police.

“That is something that could’ve been avoided,” Ivory’s sister Nikitria Beasley told Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV. “It didn’t have to happen.”

Ivory’s sisters told WFAA that even though their brother experienced homelessness, his family members and friends were constantly looking out for him. In their final phone call, Ivory expressed his worry about the onset of cold weather, Beasley said.

The siblings told KDFW-TV that Ivory had been living under the bridge on I-30.

Ivory’s sister Tesha Shannon said her brother was always trying to do the best he could, WFAA reported.

“He had such a good heart,” Shannon said. “Even with his situation, he would still find ways to help other people.”

The victim’s brother, Akida Ivory, described him as a kind person.

“He was a good dude,” Akida told the Star-Telegram. “He never hurt nobody.”

Akida said Terry Ivory was known for being a talented musician. Terry had a 15-piece drum set that he would play in the garage of their childhood home, where Akida would try to mimic his brother’s skills.

“I couldn’t play as good as him. So I just let it ride. He was really good at it,” Akida said.

Terry also contributed at a church in Virginia, where he would fill in and play the keyboard whenever the organist wasn’t available.

Terry and his brother were born in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and moved to Virginia. Terry later came back to the DFW area to be closer to family. According to Akida, Terry was working for UPS before the accident that took his life.

“I miss him,” Akida said.

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White Settlement police responded to a Jack in the Box parking lot around 11 p.m. Saturday. They found Terry Ivory’s body upside down in the passenger seat of a gray Kia Forte, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. The driver, Flores, was asleep in the car.

Flores seemed unaware that a person was dead inside his car, police said. He told law enforcement that he thought he’d hit a deer between Dallas and White Settlement. Flores is expected to face a charge of intoxication manslaughter, pending the results of a blood test, police said. He was booked into the Dallas County Jail on a charge of accident involving death.

The arresting officer said it “smelled like a brewery in the back seat of his patrol car,” White Settlement Police Chief Christopher Cook said Monday at a news conference.

“You are so impaired that you strike a pedestrian on a service road, and you don’t even realize it is a human being?” Cook said. “I cannot fathom the level of impairment.”

Court records from Collin County indicate Flores pleaded guilty in 2021 to driving while intoxicated in Plano in 2020. Court records list the sentence as “local jail,” but do not say for how long.

White Settlement police reached out to other North Texas law enforcement agencies for help in determining where Saturday’s crash took place. Officials with the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office believe the accident occurred on the I-30 service road near Cockrell Hill Road. Ivory’s legs were severed below the knee and were found in that area, according to the affidavit.

A friend of Ivory’s came up to investigators at the Dallas scene and asked if he was the person who was hit, the affidavit states.

“It’s almost like a movie to hear the story and to know what happened… and then find out it’s your loved one… it’s difficult,” Beasley told WFAA.