Brand-new to San Francisco, 26-year-old recent Dartmouth College grad Sheria Musyoka had big plans for the next chapter of his life.
He would teach 3-year-old son Theo soccer and Swahili, a language spoken in his native Kenya. He would get involved in politics and diversity programs with his community. And he hoped to someday work with charter schools — helping the city’s youth get the education that Musyoka valued so much himself.
“He wasn’t happy with just building his career,” said Musyoka’s friend and mentor Chris Miller. “He also wanted to start getting involved.”
But Musyoka’s dreams of his future with Theo and wife Hannah Ege were ripped away Thursday morning, when he was fatally struck while jogging during a multicar crash allegedly caused by a drunken driver. Police say the suspect, 31-year-old Jerry Lyons, was speeding in a stolen 2003 Ford Explorer when he caused the fatal eight-car crash near Higuera Avenue and Lake Merced Boulevard.
Lyons, who was on probation supervision out of San Francisco and San Mateo County and facing another DUI from December, is jailed on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter. Prosecutors are expected to file charges Monday.
Musyoka was the type of person people gravitated to, Miller said. He was kind and extremely intelligent, and loved to find new ways to make people’s lives easier.
Left in the wake of the crash are Musyoka’s friends, co-workers and young family, which will now leave the city it has called home for not yet two weeks.
“She moved to the city with really, really high hopes,” Miller said of Ege, recalling a talk the women had Friday when driving through San Francisco to view Musyoka’s body.
“She said, ‘It’s so sad that the city’s so beautiful and we’re not going to get to see it, because I don’t have the heart to stay here,’” Miller said.
Ege, too distraught to speak to The Chronicle on Saturday, asked that Miller speak on her behalf.
In an interview with KGO-TV, Ege said it was important that the family live in San Francisco itself, after having just moved from Connecticut.
“I wanted diversity, I wanted my son to grow up with others that looked like him,” she said. “There were a lot of opportunities he could have in San Francisco, and we were so excited. Our first week here was heaven, we were so happy to be here to be on our own.”
Musyoka saved up enough money working in Kenya to get to the U.S. and pursue an education in political science at Dartmouth. He paid his way through school working as a recruiting coordinator for Dartmouth and still managed to graduate in the top 3% of his class, Miller said.
Musyoka’s college job paved the way for his career after graduation, and caught the eye of Miller, who was working as the head of recruiting at Akili Interactive, a Boston biotechnology company.
“I was just so super-impressed by him,” said Miller, who placed Musyoka on her team. “The more I gave him to do, the more he excelled and just kept asking for more and more work.”
Musyoka was funny, witty and driven, always on the hunt for a challenge, Miller said. He gravitated toward the job’s diversity and inclusion programs, and took interest in a neuro diversity recruiting program while the company developed video games to treat adolescent attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
He was warm and friendly to those who got to know him, but was also somewhat reserved, Miller said. In college, he threw himself into his academics at the expense of a packed social life.
Musyoka didn’t have an easy family life growing up, Miller said, and had concerns as a new parent.
“He was saying he was very worried that he wouldn’t be a good dad — he kept saying it over and over again,” Miller said.
Miller, who had become a mom at 19, assured him that it was normal to feel this way, and that her kids made it in one piece.
“He said, ‘I want to be a good example, and I’m just worried about how to do that,’” Miller said.
One of Musyoka’s proudest moments came just weeks ago, when he obtained U.S. citizenship.
Miller and Musyoka toasted over Zoom on Jan. 2 after Musyoka told his former boss about his new green card, Miller said, “and I’ve never seen him smile that big.”
Musyoka was so proud of it that he began carrying it around in his pocket. On Thursday morning, when Musyoka left for a pre-workday jog to explore his new city, he left his ID and other information at home. But the green card was with him.
Miller questioned why Lyons, the suspect in Musyoka’s case, was out of jail after an alleged DUI in San Francisco on Dec. 3. Lyons had been under probation supervision out of both San Francisco and San Mateo counties, and had been arrested at least seven times since his April release from prison on a grand theft conviction.
After Lyons’ Dec. 3 arrest, he spent 27 days in jail for a probation violation and was freed while toxicology results were still pending in his case. After the results came back on Jan. 22, District Attorney Chesa Boudin said prosecutors opted to file charges for DUI and driving without a license.
California Highway Patrol officials, who arrested Lyons in the Dec. 3 case, sent him a notice that he would be cited and must report to the CHP. A failure to report after 14 days would have led to an arrest warrant, CHP officials said. The crash came 13 days after Jan. 22.
Miller said she’s going to “work (her) butt off” to ensure that Lyons receives the maximum penalty.
“Someone like that should not be able to walk free when now there’s a 3-year-old that’s not going to have a dad to raise him,” Miller said.
A GoFundMe page created by Miller to support Musyoka’s family received nearly $70,000 in donations by Saturday evening — a testament to her friend’s character.
“He touches people really quickly, because he’s kind and he’s competent, and he is just a really amazing person,” she said. “It just makes it even harder to stomach.”
Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
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‘A really amazing person’: 26-year-old jogger killed in multicar S.F. crash was dad with big plans - San Francisco Chronicle
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