The family of a 23-year-old who died Sunday are still searching for the driver who fled the scene after fatally striking him in the Dallas Design District.
As Seth Rains was leaving a Green Velvet concert with friends early Sunday, a car hit him on Turtle Creek Boulevard and Market Center Boulevard at about 2:40 a.m., his mother, Cyndi Rains, and police say.
Rains was struck by a vehicle driven by a man, and his mother said she learned about the incident from friends who had been with him. She said her son’s friends raced after the vehicle to get the man to stop.
“They were like, ‘You just hit our friend, you need to stop,’” she said. “That’s when he slammed on his gas and left. He just took off.”
Rains later died at Parkland Memorial Hospital, according to the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office.
He was the type of person who always cared about others, his mother said.
“Seth was very kind, thoughtful, compassionate,” his mother said Wednesday. “He always went after the kid that was by himself because he didn’t want anyone to feel left out.”
The day after his death, the family started searching for the driver.
Rains’ uncles spent hours going to businesses in the area asking if they saw anything or had footage of the accident, his mother said.
They were able to obtain the recordings from a restaurant who shared the video with police, she said. The family said the car that hit Rains was a Black sedan and two people were in the car.
Now, Cyndi Rains said the closure she needs in her son’s death is for the driver to acknowledge the life that was taken.
“I want to look him in the face and say, ‘You know this is the person that you hurt, that you killed. This is my son’” she said. “We would want to give him an opportunity to take accountability. Tell me like, what happened?”
There have been no updates on the investigation or on the arrest of the driver, police told The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday.
Rains was raised in Arlington and went to school in Mansfield. He went on to graduate from Texas Tech in May 2024 with a degree in finance.
“Seth was a light in all of our lives, he never left a room without leaving smiles behind him,” his aunt, Rachel Lopez Doporto, said in a GoFundMe shared to cover funeral costs.
He lived his life following his faith as a Christian and was dedicated to giving back to others, his mother said. He dreamed of one day starting a program to teach kids financial literacy, she said.
“I know he’s in heaven, he’s home,” his mother said. “I’m thankful that he didn’t suffer when it happened.”
The family said they expect to hold a funeral for Rains next weekend.
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