The family of Zoraleigh Ryan had one simple question for the man accused of hitting the woman with his SUV in River North, then rounding the block and striking her again, killing her.
“Why?” Ryan’s daughter Amber Logue asked from the witness stand Friday. “Why did you go back around to finish the job after the first time you hit her, to finish her off when she was still alive?”
But the family got no real answer as the driver Edgar Roman was sentenced to 24 years under a plea deal.
Roman, 29, struck Ryan and her daughter Shannon Ryan at Hubbard and State streets in August of 2020. Roman got out and stood a few feet away as a Samaritan tended to the two women. Then he drove off.
He circled the block and swerved at the Ryans as they lay in the street. The Samaritan pulled Shannon Ryan to safety but her mother, 55, was unable to get up and was hit again. She was dragged a half-block as Roman raced away.
Moments later, as Shannon Ryan held her mother’s body in the street, Roman returned to the intersection once again, only to speed off with police in pursuit.
Roman was arrested later that night when he went to a police station to make a false report that he’d been carjacked. His story was quickly undercut by surveillance video showing Roman’s trips around the block.
Ryan’s daughter told police she had seen his face clearly as he stood just a few feet away. A bystander took a photo of Roman’s license plate.
During the court hearing Friday, Roman expressed remorse as he accepted a plea deal. But the two-hour hearing did not provide the answers Ryan’s family had hoped to hear.
When Judge Diana Kenworthy asked Roman to speak before she handed down his sentence, he said “I live in shame since the night of the incident. I was under the influence of alcohol and drugs… I was not in my right state of mind. I don’t hurt people on purpose.”
Ryan’s mother, son and daughter rose from their seats and leaned into the courtroom doorway to listen but could barely hear Roman’s mumbled apology.
Even when they were given copies of Roman’s handwritten statement after the hearing, Ryan’s family said they didn’t understand.
“If he goes to jail for one year or 1,000, nothing is going to bring my mother back,” said Ryan’s son Ryan Logue. “I just wanted the truth.”
Zoraleigh Ryan was a Chicago native who raised her family in the south suburbs. She had been a devoted caretaker to her husband, who died last year, and was “the glue” of her large family.
For years she ran Bible camps and went on church mission trips. She took in nearly a dozen foster children over the years, her family said.
Zoraleigh Ryan and her husband had moved to Chandler, Ariz. to care for a sick relative. She was in Chicago with her daughter for a birthday celebration. The two were looking for a convenience store after leaving Chicago Cut steakhouse, Shannon Ryan said.
The streets were nearly empty. It was a Monday night, and downtown protests had damaged downtown over the previous weekend. The Ryans were waiting for a rideshare back to their hotel.
Shannon Ryan said she has struggled physically and emotionally since the crash, suffering from chronic pain even after her broken bones healed, as well as a deep sense of anxiety and panic at the sound of revving engines.
On the witness stand Friday, she said she can no longer recall what her mother looked like without thinking of her bloodied face.
Ryan said she still wonders: Did he think he could kill the witnesses and offer his carjacking alibi to avoid arrest? Did she or her mother unwittingly do something that had angered him enough to try and kill them?
A trial might not have provided more answers, and Ryan said she worried that a technicality or sympathetic juror might have let Roman get away without any jail time.
“I have thought of a lot of things over the last four years,” Shannon Ryan said Friday in the courthouse lobby. “It’s not like we now know what happened. I don’t think 24 years seems like long enough. It doesn’t feel like we got the closure we needed.”