AURORA | About 100 people gathered at Canterbury Park in Aurora Thursday night to honor and remember the life of 26-year-old Jana Lashay Phillips, an Aurora woman who was recently killed by a drunken driver as she was walking down a sidewalk on East Iliff Avenue.
Phillips’ parents, sisters, aunts, uncles and many friends were among the attendees at the vigil at the Aurora park behind The Gardens on Havana shopping center.
Phillips, known to her family and friends as “Jana Boo,” was studying to become a dental assistant at Concord Career Institute. She was on track to graduate from the program in about four months, according to Lisa Garcia Rudolph, Phillips’ aunt.
“She was a kind, huge-hearted and loving woman,” Rudolph wrote of Phillips. “She was the world’s greatest aunt and cared for her nephews daily.”
Phillips, a graduate of Eagle Crest High School, had previously worked security at West Middle School in the Cherry Creek School District.
Vigil attendees held candles, sang and heard prayers from a local preacher.
“She was probably one of the nicest people that you could ever meet,” said Alonzo Williams, Phillips’ uncle. “She was kind-hearted. She was sweet. She would help anybody. She was also there for you whenever you needed her, especially for the people that she loved.”
Williams, who is related to Phillips by marriage, said he first met Phillips about eight years ago after he moved back to Colorado from Texas.
“But I felt like I’ve known her my whole life,” he said. “She was always there for us.”
Phillips was hit by a car and killed in the early morning hours of Oct. 28 — just four days after her 26th birthday. Police found Phillips’ body after receiving a call for a welfare check on a person who was lying on the ground around 3 a.m. Phillips had died by the time officers got there.
Aurora Police arrested Timothy Knutson, 37, for his role in Phillips’ death, charging him with vehicular homicide, leaving the scene, careless driving resulting in death, and driving under the influence.
Officers pulled Knutson over at about 2 a.m. Sunday morning after watching him erratically drive a damaged Jeep Patriot around the New Life Church parking lot, and later onto a curb on Telluride Street.
Investigators linked Knutson to the crime after finding pieces of a black car and a hubcap that matched Knutson’s Jeep in the area where Phillips’ body was found.
Records from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation show Knutson has a lengthy criminal history spanning nearly two decades. Knutson has had run-ins with law enforcement agencies across the Front Range, including the Denver Police Department, the Lone Tree Police Department, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, the Douglas County Sheriff’s office, the Limon Police Department, and the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, among others. The four new charges filed by local police mark the first time Knutson has been arrested in Aurora, records show.
The criminal investigation and prosecution of the case have been handed to the 18th Judicial District, according to police.
A wake for Phillips is scheduled for Nov. 7, Williams said. A funeral will be held the following day.