Only on 13: Family pleads for driver to come forward after couple killed while riding bikes

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- Only on 13, an emotional family is asking the driver involved in a double fatal hit-and-run to do the right thing and turn themselves in.

The hit-and-run involved two cyclists and two cars on Veterans Memorial Drive near Fallbrook Drive in northwest Harris County on Tuesday.

Heather Perez is the niece of the victim, Daniel Perez.

"How could you just leave him to die there?" Heather said.

The family of 52-year-old Perez is known for his big smiles, love of family, and never taking himself too seriously.

"Happy, he was a very happy person," Heather said.

Daniel's mother, Guadeloupe Gonzalez, told ABC13 that her son rode his bike on Veterans Memorial every day on his way home from work, so the security guard at a nearby Valero gas station would keep an eye out for him at night.

"They were looking at them since they got off work, and the guy (saw) everything that happened. The owner of the store was the one who actually called her," Heather said, translating for Gonzalez.

According to the Harris County Sheriff's Office, just before 11 p.m. Tuesday, Perez and his girlfriend, Krystal Calvillo, were trying to cross the southbound lanes of Veterans Memorial when a woman in a Toyota RAV4 hit Perez. Investigators said that the driver stopped, and Perez's girlfriend went to check on him. That's when deputies said a second car hit Calvillo. Law enforcement said that the second car didn't stop.

Perez's mother is distraught that someone would leave her son and his partner like that.

"You're a bad person, and if you have kids, God sees everything," Gonzalez said.

Both Perez and Calvillo were killed. Investigators are still looking for the car that fled. The family hopes that by speaking up, someone will turn that driver in.

"How could you do this? It was a life, it was a life of a person, it wasn't an animal, it wasn't trash, it was the life of a genuine, good-hearted person," Heather said.

ABC13 has asked for details about the car that fled, but the sheriff's office said their investigators are still collecting information. The initial driver who stayed on the scene is not facing charges at this time.

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