Family of I-215 construction worker still mourns

SALT LAKE CITY — It wasn't a major hearing. It didn't bring the resolution Brayden Beddoes' family hoped it would, but they've resolved to see the case through. They'll drive up from Payson for every hearing, no matter how small, because it doesn't matter that Beddoes has been gone for a year. They never miss him any less.

After a resolution hearing in 3rd District Court was continued Thursday, Beddoes' family and friends talked about their ongoing grief.

"People keep telling us time heals," Brayden's best friend Zach Fox said. "I don't think that's true."

Brayden Beddoes, 20, was killed on I-215 on Oct. 25, 2009, when he was hit by a passing motorist who left the scene. Beddoes was sweeping a concrete hole, wearing a helmet, a reflective orange vest and ear plugs. He had his back to the roadway when he was hit. The man who has since been charged in the accident never stopped.

Instead, the driver of another vehicle tracked the man, eventually taking down his license plate number and calling the police.

"He was just a good Samaritan," Beddoes' father, Jared Beddoes, said of the man who tracked the hit-and-run driver.

"He's our hero," Brayden Beddoes' mother, Tiffanie, said. "We'd have nothing without him."

The family still doesn't know who the man is but are grateful to him for helping bring 51-year-old Michael Brinkman to justice. Nearly six months after the accident, Brinkman was charged with manslaughter and driving with a controlled substance in his body, both second-degree felonies. Brinkman is also charged with possession of a controlled substance and obstructing justice, both third-degree felonies, and leaving the scene of an accident involving death and failure to use a designated lane, class A and class C misdemeanors.

But the family didn't want to talk about Brinkman. For them, it's about Brayden. They want to be there for him because they know he'd do the same for them. They teetered in their emotions, laughing one moment at the memory of their dear son, grandson and friend and then letting the tears fall over the fact that he is gone. That he will never again come up behind them in the hall, stick them in a closet and then ask them what they're doing there.

Tiffanie Beddoes began to describe her son before tears halted her speech: "I know that every mother says this, but he was. ..."

"Special," his great-aunt Marcia Hales finished the sentence. "He was a really special child."