EL CAJON, Calif. (KGTV) - A crowd gathered in El Cajon to honor the life of a man, killed in a hit-and-run accident, on the day he was supposed to be married.
He never recovered, and passed away Wednesday.
Saturday, his fiancé Karlene Moen stood in front of friends and family at their wedding venue, complete with the cake and flowers, and told them how Johnson helped and inspired so many.
"It's amazing to see how many people's lives he actually did touch because I've always just heard about it and I've never actually seen it," Moen said.
Johnson was a sponsor for drug addicts and alcoholics. He was sober almost 16 years, according to Moen. Several men told 10News they're only here today because of Johnson. They said they became sober because Johnson truly believed in them.
Moen said she and her fiancé met at an NAA meeting, "he taught me how to live my life sober, he taught me how to love my kids sober, he taught me how to be a mom sober, he taught me how to be a friend sober."
As she thought about her wedding day, tears filled her eyes, "we were supposed to be married today, I was supposed to take his hand and unite as one." Wiping away tears she continued, "It's messing me up, and I almost don't want to be here, because it hurts so bad, it, I feel pain in my chest."
She fretted about their wedding day, saying a week before the big day she helped him get an outfit. "I didn't get to wear my wedding dress that I picked out especially for him, that I knew that when he looked at me that he would think that I was the most beautiful woman he's seen," she said mournfully.
One lasting question in her mind, "I just want to know why? I just want to know what kind of a person you are to not even help him up off the road?"
His family wants the woman who left the scene to turn her self in, or someone who knows what happened to come forward, to give them closure.
