They know who he was, they just don’t know why it happened

The last time Lisa Eichelberger saw her son he was doing dishes in the dark.

The Kennewick woman had come home from work Tuesday evening for a break. She asked the 22-year-old why he was washing dishes with the lights off, but he didn’t really have a response.

But that wasn’t behavior completely out of the ordinary for Kelly L.E. Estep. So, his mom didn’t think much of it.

It wasn’t until she woke up from a short nap to find him gone.

Eichelberger was worried but didn’t call authorities because she knew police would consider her an over-concerned mother. When he still wasn’t back by 9:30 p.m., she had to get back to her janitorial job and left the door unlocked for him.

As she drove along Columbia Drive near their home, she passed police cars and emergency vehicles.

She remembered hoping her son wasn’t involved.

“I saw all the lights out on Columbia Drive, I was wondering if he got arrested,” she said.

What Eichelberger didn’t know was that her son was walking west on Columbia Drive about 7:20 p.m. when he stepped or stumbled into an eastbound lane.

A passing semi driver did not have time to stop and hit him about two blocks east of the Highway 395 off-ramp.

A car behind the truck tried to swerve to avoid Estep in the roadway but she couldn’t, said Kennewick police Sgt. Matt Newton.

Estep died at the scene.

When Eichelberger returned home hours later, she was still worried he wasn’t back but again she resisted calling police.

When she woke up Wednesday, she knew something was wrong and called 911. What she didn’t know is police had been trying to find her since the night before.

Dispatchers put her through to investigators.

“They said, ‘We want to come and talk to you,’” she said. “That’s when I got the really devastating news.”

Estep moved in with her about a year ago. Before that, he grew up with an aunt and uncle in Longview.

“He used to say, ‘I’m special because I got two moms,’” Eichelberger told the Herald. “We were his two most important people.”

He received his GED through a North Columbia College program and had worked as a mechanic and in fisheries in Woodlawn and Astoria.

But for years he’d struggled with being able to focus and concentrate so had trouble keeping a job.

Since coming to the Tri-Cities, he helped family members with chores, loved his pet scorpion and spent many hours fishing, said his mom.

His Facebook pages are decorated with images of fishing and riding dirt bikes.

“He was an awesome kid,” she said.

This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 11:11 AM with the headline "They know who he was, they just don’t know why it happened."