photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured on Nov. 27, 2023.

Lindsay Raine’s daughter, Milli, remembers the last words she heard from her mother on the morning of the accident in 2020 that took Lindsay’s life.

“The last words she said to me is, ‘I love you. I love you to the moon and back,'” the 15-year-old girl told a teary-eyed courtroom on Wednesday. She was one of several family members who took the stand at the civil trial in the family’s suit against towing company Hillcrest Wrecker and tow truck driver Erin VanNatta.

All of them said that their lives had been upended when Raine was crushed under her Chrysler while preparing to have it towed on Nov. 9, 2020, and they argue that Hillcrest could have prevented it through better training for its employees.

Milli said Raine was her closest friend and confidant and that the two would frequently take walks for “girl talk”. She said they loved cooking together and watching television.

But now, she can’t stop thinking about how her mother will never see her graduate high school or get married, and that Raine was always there for her no matter what.

“All I have now is old pictures on my phone,” she said. “When I want a hug, I am hugging the picture from the funeral home.”

Raine’s death was just as hard on her 11-year-old brother, she said. As she fought through tears, she said her brother, once open and happy, was now struggling and closed off from the world. Their grandmother and Raine’s mother, Laticia “Rocky” Raine, said much the same.

“I honestly believe he thinks (Raine) is going to walk through the door, but she’s not,” Laticia said.

Both children were at home when the accident occurred, Laticia said. She remembered how her grandson reacted, looking out the window afterward and seeing what had happened.

“In the street that day she died, he looked out the window,” Laticia said. “He saw her lying there.”

Later, Laticia said, he asked, “Was that my mom?”

• • •

Laticia and Raine’s father, Bill Raine, are still a major part of the kids’ lives, she said, and they do everything they can to help the children’s father, Juan Moore, raise them. The children meant everything to Raine, she said.

Moore testified that he remembered being with Raine at each of their children’s births. He said Raine, in addition to just being in the kids’ lives every day, loved special days and holidays and wanted to make them as memorable as possible for the kids.

Just before the tow truck arrived, Moore said, he was with Raine. He expected Raine to just hand the tow driver the keys and come back inside.

He said he didn’t know anything went wrong until he heard sirens approaching the house.

As the Journal-World has reported, the accident on Nov. 9, 2020, happened after VanNatta showed up at Raine’s home to tow her car.

VanNatta had testified at trial on Monday that she met with Raine at the top of Raine’s steep driveway, where Raine’s vehicle was sitting disabled on wooden blocks. VanNatta said she told Raine that her plan was to roll the car backward down the driveway into the street so she could load the vehicle onto the truck from a flat surface. But VanNatta said Raine started rocking the vehicle off the blocks as VanNatta was getting the truck into position; she testified that she yelled at Raine to stop, but that the car rolled off the blocks and crushed Raine underneath it.

The family is alleging that negligence in hiring and training practices contributed to Raine’s death, and Raine’s attorney Nick Hinrichs presented an expert witness, Dustin Phillips of Kingdom Trucking Academy, who trains drivers for commercial driver’s licenses. Phillips testified that he had reviewed Hillcrest’s training procedures and thought they were inadequate. He said VanNatta had failed to secure the vehicle when she arrived at the property and failed to remove Raine from the zone of danger around the vehicle.

James Godfrey, an attorney for Hillcrest, asked whether Phillips had ever towed a vehicle or trained drivers in a towing scenario. Phillips said he had driven a tow truck but had never actually towed anyone. He said he trained tow truck drivers in October 2024 for Santa Fe Towing out of Kansas City. Godfrey later presented another witness — Kyle Kupchin, fleet manager for Santa Fe Towing — who said he had never heard of Phillips and that there was no record of him training anyone at their numerous facilities.

• • •

Moore and Raine weren’t married, and Moore isn’t a party to the lawsuit, which was brought by Laticia on behalf of the children. But Moore said he now raises the children without her, and that he had no idea how much Raine truly did for him and the kids until she was gone.

And on Wednesday, the plaintiffs called another witness to speak about what Raine would have done for those kids over their lives: John Ward, an economist who was formerly with the University of Missouri.

Ward said he sought to calculate the potential damages that could be recovered in connection with Raine’s death, and her care for the children and other contributions to the household were part of the calculations he did. Based on Raine’s education, a GED, and the likelihood she would return to work, he testified that her contributions to her family over her life would be worth almost a million dollars — $922,829 was his estimate.

The jury will ultimately decide whether Hillcrest is responsible, and whether the family gets any damages at all. The plaintiffs rested on Wednesday, and the trial, which has been going on since Monday, is expected to conclude Thursday afternoon.

But Milli and the rest of the family made it clear that, no matter the outcome, that the pain and fear that’s entered their lives isn’t going away.

“My biggest fear is dying,” Milli told the emotional courtroom. “I don’t know where I will go or if I’ll see my mom again.” the girl said.