Simi Valley street memorial for boy killed in traffic stolen

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (KABC) -- A mother's memorial to her young son who was killed riding his bike was stolen in Simi Valley.

A Simi Valley mother is overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and financial contributions to help bury her son. But she's devastated that someone would take his memorial.

Jacob Sellers had turned 12 a week before he was fatally struck on his bicycle by a semi-truck at the intersection of Tapo and Alamo streets in Simi Valley. Following the tragedy on May 25, the community joined the boy's family in creating a makeshift memorial near the scene of the accident.

"It was beautiful: the ghost bike and the stuffed animals and the candles," said Jacob's mother, Brenda Sellers.

As if the child's family is not in enough emotional pain, they were recently brought to more tears after finding out that someone took down Jacob's memorial.

"All the pictures that were taped to the pole, all the cards, the stuffed animals, the candles, everything including the bike that was bolted to the pole," said Brenda.

Brenda said the memorial represented the lasting memory of her son's smile, laughter and dreams to one day serve and defend his country in the U.S. Army.

"This is the one place I felt I could come and have some closeness to him so it's heartbreaking that somebody would do that. There's other memorials that have been up for years, so I don't understand why somebody would target Jacob's," said Brenda.

Police say while whoever took down the memorial committed no crime, it was an insensitive act.

Jacob's family plans to rebuild the makeshift memorial, but they are going to put it inside of a gate on the property of Tapo Transmission and Automotive.

"Considering if that was my family, my son, what would I do? What would I say?" said owner Houshyar Zolfaghari. "If there's anything I can do, I'd be happy to."

Jacob's family is hoping to rebuild the memorial in the next several weeks.

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