There will be a wake for Russell tonight at Henderson Funeral Home.
SPRINGFIELD – The late Derek Russell hopped on his bicycle early New Year’s Day because he thought it was safer than catching a ride with a friend who had been drinking, his mother, Joanne Russell-Fisher recalled.
Russell-Fisher said she was vehemently opposed to the idea and told her son so. After all, the new year was just a few hours old and revelers were still likely driving on city streets.
The credo “You don’t drive on New Year’s Eve - no matter what,” is something that she has long instilled in all her children, Russell-Fisher said.
The 25-year-old was adamant, however, and insisted his decision to ride to his girlfriend Nakeah Norwood’s home, about 10 minutes away, was the prudent way to go.
Derek Russell
“I am going to be cool, I am on a bicycle,” Russell-Fisher recalled her son saying as he prepared to head out the door. “Cut it out Ma, cut it out. I will call you in the morning.”
Russell-Fisher said she finally relented and that the last thing she ever said to her eldest son was “All right Derek, you be careful. Bye.”
That morning phone call, of course, never came.
Police say Russell was pedaling out from Barber Street onto Boston Road when a drunk driver behind the wheel of Ford F-150 pickup truck hit him at 70 mph.
Russell died at the scene, about a half-mile away from his Larchmont Street home. He was the father of a 1-year-old boy. His wake will be held Wednesday night at Henderson Funeral Home.
The driver, 38-year-old Adam Thurber of 85 Tavistock St., never stopped, police said. Parts of Russell’s bicycle were found on the ground near the Walmart lot nearly a mile away.
Russell-Fisher said that dealing with her son’s brutal death has been all the harder by the driver's apparent decision not to stop.
“This is the worst thing I have ever had to deal with in my life,” Russell-Fisher said. “It’s like a sword in my heart. I feel he left him there like he was a dead coyote. It’s hard to deal with this right now, it’s hard to come back from. It was just such a heinous way to die.”
Russell-Fisher said when that phone call never came the following morning, when her son failed to walk back in through the door, “it was the worst empty feeling that I have ever dealt with.”
She said when she heard the news the that morning that a yet-to-be identified bicyclist was killed by a hit-and-run driver on Boston Road, she knew it was her son.
Later that day. after failing to reach Russell by phone, after checking with all his friends, Russell-Fisher called the police.
Russell-Fisher positively identified her son at the police station when investigators showed her and other family members a photograph of one of Russell’s tattoos. Recently inked on his arm, it shows the Bahamian flag.
Police, acting on information from a witness, found Thurber’s blood-spattered pickup parked in his driveway. The suspect was arrested in Ludlow two days later. He denied the charges and was ordered held in lieu of $100,000 cash bail.
Thurber had been arrested for drunken driving after crashing his pickup truck on Interstate 291 in April and he twice tested positive for cocaine while he was on probation, according to court records.
Russell-Fisher described her son as an “awesome person and an honest person and the sweetest guy that you ever met.” She said her family is very close-knit and that he always kept a “double-eye” out for everybody’s well-being.
Russell, who attended the High School of Science and Technology but never graduated, was known by his friends as “D Nice” for his easy-going ways, she said.
Her son’s father, Derek Russell Sr., is devastated, she said.
Russell-Fisher said life wasn’t always easy for her son. He got involved with drugs and paid for that with some time in jail. Russell since had plans, however to get his GED and make something of his life, she said.
“He said ‘I am done, I need to fix my life,’” Russell-Fisher said of the day her son was released from jail. “He has since been doing the right thing.”
Police determined that Thurber had been driving 70 mph when he hit Russell by analyzing two surveillance cameras mounted on opposite sides of a home near the accident scene.
One of the cameras showed Thurber’s Ford F-150 pickup truck, eastbound on Boston Road, strike Russell as he pedaled out from Barber Street.
A second camera on the other side of the house showed the pickup, now dragging the frame of the bicycle, continue on without stopping.
Russell-Fisher said the man who owns the home with the surveillance cameras, a complete stranger to her, came to her house the day after Derek was killed to tell her what he knew of the crash.
The man had a copy of the video that showed the crash and told her that he didn’t think she should watch it, but that if she ever felt she had the need to, he would make it available to her.
Russell-Fisher said she declined the offer and that she began crying as she talked with the man, told him she was mournful that her son died alone on Boston Road.
The man told her that wasn’t the case.
“He said ‘Your son didn’t die alone,’” Russell-Fisher said, adding that he told her a large number of people from the neighborhood came out to be with Russell, sit by his side and hold his hand, cover him with blankets.
“I was very grateful to him,” Russell-Fisher said.