OCEANSIDE, Calif. (KGTV) — Loved ones are remembering a Navy sailor killed in a chain-reaction crash on Interstate 5 last week near Camp Pendleton.
“He visited me in Missouri about three weeks ago. He hugged me and said, ‘Momma, I love you!’” said Anquenette McDonald.
For a grieving mother and aunt, the memories are precious and bittersweet.
"I wake up and think this can't be true,” said a tearful McDonald.
Their nightmare began last Thursday, around 3 a.m.
38-year-old Jess Davis was among five motorcycle riders on southbound I-5, returning from an event in Los Angeles. The CHP says near Camp Pendleton, a Jeep collided with a van. The motorcycle riders were too close to avoid the crash.
Davis and two other motorcycle riders would die at the scene. The driver of the Jeep died several days later. Four others were injured in the chain-reaction crash. The details haunt Davis' loved ones.
“His last thoughts are what go through my mind, what was he thinking,” said Jessica Davis, Davis’ aunt.
Jessica calls Davis, a husband to Alysia Davis, and a father of five, a devoted father and Navy sailor, where he worked as a cook.
“He loved serving his country. He was very proud,” said Jessica Davis.
For nineteen years with the Navy, Davis served on the Point Loma-based attack submarine USS Alexandria. He was also getting excited, as he recently took a test, hoping to be promoted to ‘Chief.’
Loved ones say the confident, loving and joyful Davis, was the glue that pulled the family together.
“Jess had the best smile. He was like sunshine, like a new breath of air is what Jess was,” says McDonald.
Davis, who began riding more than a decade ago, also loved his biker family and being on his bike.
“I think it gave him a freedom, you know. He could just be who he is and do what he loves,” said McDonald.
His family takes some comfort that he was with his biker family when he died. His death, says his mother, is one she finds hard to accept.
“I just want to know where he is and when he's coming back … I don’t want to believe he's gone,” said McDonald.
Neither alcohol nor drugs are believed to be factors in the chain reaction crash.
Any witnesses to the crash are asked to call the Oceanside CHP office at 760-643-3400.
