GAINESVILLE, Ga. — Georgia State Patrol and the Hall County Sheriff’s Office are both investigating the death of 37-year-old Teresa Bruce.
Her sister, Natasha Cantrell, said someone found Bruce along Skelton Road in Gainesville after she was struck by a car on the evening of April 18.
“They just left her there on the side of the road, and I don’t know how long she was laying there,” Cantrell explained.
Cantrell said they had no idea her sister was hurt. She said Bruce had been missing for several days leading up to that Thursday night when she was hit. Cantrell said she had called around but couldn’t find anyone who had seen or heard from her sister.
It wasn’t until April 24 that she found out she was in the hospital on life-support.
“I get to the hospital, and immediately I’m met in the ER by a Chaplin, so I knew it was bad,” Cantrell said.
At this point, she still had no clue her sister was involved in a hit-and-run. However, she soon found out just how bad it really was when Bruce was taken off life-support later that same day.
“I want to know why I couldn’t talk to my sister, why I couldn’t find my sister. I want to know what led to her being on that road,” Cantrell questioned.
She said no one called to tell her that Bruce was in the hospital. She said it broke her heart knowing her sister was alone for those six days in the hospital.
"Somebody put her there on that road, and I want to know who put her there on that road. Because she deserved better than that," Cantrell said, adding, "She was my baby sister."
She admitted Bruce had been fighting her own demons, living on the streets after a series of missteps along the way of trying to navigate life.
“Once you get to that point where you made all of these mistakes and you’ve lost literally everything and you’re already at the bottom and you’re in the freaking gutter, it’s so hard to get out of that, and it doesn’t matter how driven you, how passionate you are once you get down there it’s very hard to crawl your way out,” Cantrell explained.
She added, “She was talking about just wanting to fix her life.”
However, Bruce wouldn’t get any more time to work on fixing her life.
Cantrell said she last spoke to her sister around April 13. She said it was odd because she couldn’t reach her on the phone, and she quit posting on social media, which was unusual.
“I was calling around asking everybody, have they seen her? When’s the last time they saw her? You know what’s going on with her?” Cantrell said.
It wasn’t until April 24, the day Bruce died, that Cantrell found her at the hospital in Gainesville.
“I want to know what happened to her from the 13th to the 18th,” Cantrell said.
The Hall County Sheriff’s Office is looking into allegations Bruce may have been assaulted in the days prior to being hit on Skelton Road.
In a statement sent to 11Alive, the Hall County Sheriff’s Office said:
The Hall County Sheriff’s Office became involved in the case when the agency was contacted by nurses at Northeast Georgia Medical Center-Gainesville on the date of Ms. Bruce’s death, April 24, 2024.
Persons known to Ms. Bruce alleged that she could have been assaulted prior to the hit-and-run and the injuries sustained in the assault contributed to her death.
However, that information has not been confirmed by investigators.
Ms. Bruce’s body has been sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Crime Labe to determine her cause of death.
Georgia State Patrol said their investigation into the hit-and-run is active and ongoing.
Cantrell just hopes the driver who hit her sister is found and brought to justice.
“She deserved better than that, all humans deserve better than that. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you’re going through, you’re a living, breathing human being and you do not deserve to be left for dead on the side of the road. You just don’t,” Cantrell explained.
Anyone with information on the hit-and-run is asked to call Georgia State Patrol at (404) 624-7451 or Crime Stoppers of Greater Atlanta at 404-577-8477. If you have any information surrounding Bruce’s whereabouts and interactions in the days leading up to her being hit on April 18, call the Hall County Sheriff’s Office at (770) 531-6900.
