Family mourning 25-year-old father of 2 killed in Piñon Hills hit-and-run crash​on January 28, 2025 at 11:59 pm

PINION HILLS, Calif. (KABC) — A family is grieving after a 25-year-old father and husband was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Piñon Hills.

Tristen Hamilton, who went by Tristen Horn, was fatally struck near the intersection of Green and Hollister roads on Jan. 19 around 6:15 p.m. He was riding his dirt bike just around the corner from his home.

The California Highway Patrol is still searching for the driver who struck Hamilton and fled.

“I feel like my heart is gone,” said Rosario Amezcua, the victim’s wife. “I feel like I’m walking as just a half a person, he was my everything. We’d been together since high school. Basically, my whole world was ripped.”

Amezcua said she rushed to the scene as soon as she got the news that her husband had been involved in a crash. By the time she arrived, she said first responders were administering CPR. But it was too late.

A CHP officer told her it appeared her husband had been struck by a driver who then fled the scene.

“I got really angry. Like did you not think to stop and think that was someone’s father, brother, husband, cousin… That was a human being that you just struck, and you didn’t bother to make sure they were OK or even scream for help and leave so someone knew what happened.”

“You just instead decided to leave like a coward,” she added.

Amezcua said the CHP told her that evidence left at the scene indicated the type of vehicle the suspect was driving.

“They narrowed it down due to parts on the road to it being an older truck, an F-250 ranging from around 1983 to 2005.”

A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for the family, which includes two small children.

Amezcua shared a picture with Eyewitness News that was taken a few days before the tragic crash, when Hamilton surprised his family by taking them to the Rainforest Café in Ontario.

“(My daughter) talks about how daddy surprised her… going to the rainforest, seeing all the animals. And I’m like ‘Yeah, did you have fun? Yeah, I miss daddy, and I was like yeah, I bet you do baby. Mommy does too.'”