CLEVELAND — In an instant, Justin Spohn’s life changed. “I lost my best friend,” said Spohn. Spohn and his fiancé Elyse Bodee were just starting their lives together.
They were looking forward to this weekend.
“We were flying down to Key West on Saturday. We were getting married in front of Margaritaville,” Spohn explained. They were building a life together.
“She was an amazing person. She was the best human I knew,” said Spohn.
But those plans were destroyed early Sunday morning.
Spohn’s fiancé, Elyse Bodee, worked at Cordelia on East Fourth Street in Cleveland as a server.
“I was walking her home. We were walking across the street. She tripped in the middle of the street and somebody in a black SUV came flying down the street and ran her over. I immediately ran to her and told her I loved her, and she died in my arms,” Spohn said.
Spohn said Bodee loved her job, her family and her friends and people loved her. Spohn is a chef, and Bodee was a server. Spohn shared that the Cleveland service industry is a very close community, “Our community was just devastated. The amount of support that I’ve gotten, I do thank everybody who reached out to me and reached out to our families,” he said.
Cleveland police are looking for the driver and the SUV.
Spohn is looking for justice. He is begging the driver to come forward and turn themselves into the police. Spohn has memories, pictures, and Bodee’s little dog, but the love of his life is gone. He is determined to build the life they both wanted, but now he says he will have to do it alone.
“I’m going to live out her legacy, and I’m going to build a restaurant in her honor. I’m going to do everything we were going to do as a team,” he explained.
Spohn is heartbroken. “I don’t ever want anybody to experience what I have experienced, to watch your best friend die in your arms,” Spohn said.
A GoFundMeaccount has been established for funeral costs.
