‘She is the light in the room’: Family, friends remember Wichita model killed in crash

Amanda Bradley said she cries when she thinks about the future she will miss with her daughter, the memories they won’t be able to create.

Around 7:40 a.m. Sunday, Konstance Acacia Harris was driving westbound on Kellogg headed back home from a friend’s house. Family members think she may have fallen asleep at the wheel. She drove her boyfriend’s 2012 Honda Accord into a concrete wall and then landed on Washington.

The 22-year-old Wichita woman, whose modeling career had taken her across the U.S. and abroad, died at the scene.

Family and friends described her as a positive, artistic, strong-willed animal lover who would randomly break out into dance at work. She also loved skateboarding and nature. The Wichita East High grad worked at Cardiovascular Care, near Ninth and Hillside, with her mom when she was back home in between modeling gigs that had taken her to New York, Los Angeles and Mexico.

This year was expected to bring even more highlights: moving back to New York later this month for modeling work, expected signings with agencies in London and Italy soon, the possibility of hugging her father as a free man for the first time in her life and a proposal planned by her boyfriend.

“She was an absolute ray of sunshine,” coworker and friend Shannon Soto said, crying. “Someone said it best that she doesn’t light up a room, she is the light in the room.”

Soto said Harris would break out randomly in dance during work and leave notes for people that would say things like “you’re awesome” and other sticky note messages she would sign with her name and a heart.

Harris’ beautiful smile was one of the features that stood out to Soto the most. Bradley also said her daughter’s hair — long and curly — was something that strangers noticed and always brought her compliments.

Her hair and smile also helped land her modeling gigs with Tommy Hilfiger, Nike and Amazon. But it was her strong will that got her there in the first place.

That strong will was reflected in a December 2020 Instagram photo of her in an artistic photo leaning against a reflective glass that she tagged as being taken in Chinatown, Los Angeles. She captioned the photo: “i still remember the day i realized my only competition was the person in that reflection ... now i’m unstoppable and the rest is history.” She ended the caption with a wink emoji.

She moved to LA to model

Harris was recruited by Wichita-based M&I Models out of high school. Soon after, the 18-year-old moved by herself to Los Angeles to pursue her modeling career.

She was very brave, Bradley said.

Harris signed with an agency there and added others in New York, Chicago and Mexico.

Just before COVID-19 hit in 2020, she was home at a party and stumbled into Dylan Vincent. She actually tripped, and the two knocked heads when Vincent tried to catch her.

Vincent, who had been playing basketball at Highland Community College, and Harris became best friends — both denying they had actually fallen for each other. They moved to Los Angeles together and started dating after that. Vincent, after watching her at photo shoots and learning from her, also took up modeling.

They had ambitious plans for their lives: get married and start a family, make enough money to open an animal sanctuary, maybe a tattoo parlor, and buy a van that they would travel the country in.

She had a pitbull mix named Nalah who she rescued from an abusive home and hand-fed with a bottle when she was a puppy. Her family has other rescues as well.

She loved all animals, but for some unknown reason giraffes were her favorite, Bradley said.

Harris also loved tattoos and would have gotten more had it not been for modeling.

She had a red dragon on her back, an indication of her Chinese zodiac animal for her birth year. With ink and a needle, she tried to draw a sun on her finger, but it looked more like an eyelash so that’s what she called it.

She was more successful at drawing overlapping triangles on her chest. She liked triangles and thought they were the strongest shape.

Her future plans

When the police came and knocked on Bradley’s door, she didn’t realize what they had said.

“It didn’t click,” she said. “I was still in shock that they told me she had been in an accident. I should’ve realized by the questions they were asking that she didn’t make it.”

Police went back to the car and said they would be back with more information. When they came back, police said it was her daughter in the wreck; she didn’t make it.

Harris was expected to move to New York with her boyfriend. They had already signed a six-month lease. Harris’ flight was booked for Feb. 12.

The trip will be delayed now, but Vincent still plans to go and do everything he can to achieve what they dreamed of.

‘I’m going to do it for her (and) do everything I can to make her proud,” Vincent said. “There was no other type of love” like hers.

“She loved very hard.”

She was in talks with agencies in London, Italy and Thailand, which meant extended trips to those places for work.

Vincent said Harris wanted an animal to be involved in any engagement, so an animal, a giraffe if possible, was going to be involved in the proposal he had planned for later this year.

Harris’ father, Vernon Harris, was up for parole last year but it was denied. He’s been in prison for most of her life, but the two had stayed in touch. It’s possible he could be released later this year, Bradley said. Harris was looking forward to seeing her father free for the first time.

Bradley said she cries thinking about the memories she won’t have with her daughter.

“I just wanted to see how much more she was going to grow and accomplish,” Bradley said. “I was excited for her. I tell everybody it’s not the memories I have of her that make me cry, it’s me thinking of what she was to become and what we are going to miss is what upsets me the most.”

In addition to her parents, Harris is also survived by a younger and older brother, Oli Dixon and Teondre Harris.

A GoFundMe to help the family with funeral expenses has surpassed its $10,000 goal. A funeral is planned for 1 p.m. Tuesday at Resthaven Cemetery at 119th and Kellogg in west Wichita.