Hit-and-run victim’s father died in 1981 traffic accident

Somewhere, says his mother, Jeremy Napier is having a good long talk with the father he last saw when he was a little boy.

Sharon Bolin finds comfort in that thought as she and her family grapple with the sudden loss of her son, Jeremy, 43, who was struck and killed while walking along a road near Clearwater early Sunday morning.

In 1981, Tony Napier, Jeremy’s father and Bolin’s first husband, was driving behind a truck hauling pipe on Kellogg. A pipe came loose and crashed through Napier’s windshield, killing him. Jeremy was 10.

“It’s becoming unusually normal” to lose loved ones in unimaginable tragedies, Bolin said. “It’s just one of those things you deal with.”

Jeremy Napier was walking on 103rd Street South between Ridge Road and Hoover Road when he was struck by a vehicle at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday, authorities have said. Investigators are looking for a dark red 2007 to 2009 Hyundai Santa Fe sport utility vehicle that may have front-end damage.

Family members have many questions but few answers.

“He pulled over on a side road, not on the road he was walking on,” Bolin said. “We don’t know which way he was going.”

They’re not sure what prompted him to pull over. He wouldn’t call his mother in the middle of the night to report something as relatively minor as car trouble, she said. He knew she goes to bed early now.

Sedgwick County sheriff’s Capt. David Mattingly said investigators haven’t located the vehicle that struck Napier yet.

For now, relatives and friends are more focused on saying farewell to Jeremy, a gregarious, outgoing guy who never met a stranger. His funeral service will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at First Christian Church in Clearwater.

Jeremy’s father, Tony, worked for many years at Youth for Christ in Wichita. Bolin said her family’s strong faith is seeing them through the tragedy.

She remarried a few years after Tony was killed, she said, and it’s been gratifying to see how everyone has come together at such a painful time.

“We have a deep faith that the Lord is with us,” she said.

This story was originally published September 16, 2014 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Hit-and-run victim’s father died in 1981 traffic accident."