By now, Tyler Shaw was supposed to be in Montana.
The 20-year-old had been talking about it for months with his family at the kitchen table of their Concord home – how he was going to move out west with his best friend Nate Engel and how they were going to go hiking, hunting and fishing, all while he went to school to get his HVAC license. Eventually, Shaw planned to build his own home among the mountains and prairies.
Engel, a childhood friend, went to college in Montana, and Tyler left Concord to visit every break he could. They went on road trips to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, and he sent his mother, Beth, videos of bison in the road.
Shaw planned to move West with his girlfriend in August when Engel left to go back to school, but the plans never came to be: Tyler was killed in a car crash on April 30 on Logging Hill Road in Bow when police said his truck was broadsided by another driver who ran a stop sign.
A couple weeks before his death, Beth Shaw found a numbered list of 30 goals in Tyler’s lunchbox that he wrote in black and blue ink during breaks at his job at a Bow construction company.
His first goal was to make a million dollars, his second was to become one of the top 25 general contractors in Montana. Number 9 was to learn how to run a business, No. 17 was to make everyone proud. Tucked in the middle of the list was No. 11 – to become a great father; the last goal he wrote down, No. 29, was to maintain a successful marriage. He never got the chance to fill out the final goal on his list, No. 30.
“He had so many dreams,” his mother said. “He was so ambitious, I know he would have accomplished all of them.”
Engel, who came home for Tyler’s services, never went back to Montana. He said it would be too hard to return there without Tyler.
“We were supposed to spend the rest of our lives together – we had it all planned out,” Engel said. “Now, I’m just trying to get through this.”
Shaw’s friends and family have good days and bad days as they cope with their grief and loss. One thing that has been challenging, they said, is knowing that no one has been held accountable for his death.
The driver of the other car, Joseph Leonard Jr., 35, of Derry, has yet to be arrested for the accident that killed Tyler. The County Attorney’s office, which took over the case from state police, declined to answer multiple calls asking if speed or alcohol were factors in the crash.
“He’s so lucky that he gets time with his family,” said Tyler’s girlfriend, Brianna Seidel. “We didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye.”
The accident happened just after 9 p.m. when Tyler left his friend Spencer Haywood’s house after a night working out and playing hockey video games in Bow.
Tyler texted Seidel that he was going to get gas and drive back to his house in Concord. When he was making his way down Logging Hill Road – past the off-ramp for Exit 1 off Interstate 89, the driver’s side of his truck was hit.
Leonard was driving South on I-89 in a 2017 Nissan Altima about 9:20 p.m. when he took the exit and failed to stop at the end of the ramp, according to New Hampshire State Police.
The crash on Logging Hill Road caused Shaw’s truck to roll over, ejecting him, police said. He was dead when authorities arrived.
Beth Shaw said she thinks about the accident every morning when she wakes up, and every night before she goes to bed. She replays the night state police woke up her family in the night to tell her that her son died.
“I think about his last moments, what were they? Did he know what was happening? I think about him being there alone, and I just wish I could have been there for him. We’re told he didn’t suffer, and we’re thankful for that,” Beth said. “I would give my life in a heartbeat if I could get his back.”
Engel said he finds it difficult to visit the place where his best friend died.
The makeshift memorial with the white cross, now-faded photos, sweatshirts, hat and fishing poles on Logging Hill Road in Bow is a constant reminder of the giant hole left in Engel’s life by the 6-foot-tall, broad-shouldered kid who was his closest friend for seven years.
“I try to come, but sometimes its just too much for me,” he said on a fall day, standing on the periphery of a group of Tyler’s friends talking and mingling at the site.
The spot where Tyler lost his life has become a hub since he died in April – a place where his friends and family come meet, share stories about Tyler and bring items that remind them of him.
Coworkers from R.S. Audley Inc., a construction company in Bow, brought Tyler’s yellow hard hat and laid it beneath the cross. Others brought a boat paddle, or skates – anything to represent Shaw’s love for being on the water. Engel put down a blue shirt from Yellowstone National Park, a place Tyler loved.
Beth said she and her husband, Chris, try to get to the memorial as often as they can to talk to Tyler, and water the shrubs someone planted there. She said they usually see one or two of Tyler’s friends when they arrive.
“I think it’s been rough on a lot of them because it is their first major peer loss,” Beth said.
One day at the site, Tyler Dow, who met Tyler in elementary school, said he came and cleared out weeds when he saw that the grass around the memorial was overgrown. Haywood, Tyler’s last friend to see him alive, said he waves to Tyler every time he drives by. Alex Kamau said he had his first legal beer on his 21 birthday there – something he would have shared with Tyler, whose 21st birthday would have been in June.
“It’s a nice place to be able to come, but it’s hard to remember what happened here,” said Brad Wheeler, 23, who worked with Tyler during the winters at a Christmas tree farm.
Beth said she always knew all of Tyler’s friends – the Shaw’s house was the place kids would come over to eat, watch sports and play football in the pool. But she said the support Tyler’s friends have offered to the family has been unbelievable.
When Tyler’s brother, Josh, graduated from Concord High School in June, a group of Tyler’s friends came his party to congratulate him. On Tyler’s birthday, they all went up to Tyler’s grandparent’s house on Bow Lake to go boating and swimming. Two of Tyler’s friends, Connor Haywood and Lexi Demetriou, raised $3,000 to put a bench at Kimball Pond in Canterbury, a place where Tyler liked to fish.
Beth Shaw said the cards and letters from former teachers and peers – some of whom don’t live in Concord anymore – have been a testament to the positive effect Tyler had on those around him.
“What we’ve learned is Tyler was everyone’s rock. He was there for everyone, whether it was to help them make a decision, to help get them out of a jam, or if they were just having a hard time – you’d go to Tyler,” she said. “He was a part of everyone’s foundation.”
Beth said life is not the same without Tyler around. The house is quieter, the family’s days are not as full of laughter as they once were. He’s on her mind every minute of the day, she said.
“My boys are my life, and part of you dies when they die,” she said.
Beth said she has a set of six or seven photos of Tyler on her desk at work – a present from a friend of his. It serves as another reminder of the loss, and the task ahead of her: making sure the person responsible for Tyler’s death faces consequences for his actions.
“I look at the pictures on my desk, and I think, ‘I’m going to get justice for you,’ ” she said.
She said having Leonard get arrested or go to jail won’t necessarily bring her any peace – nothing could. But it would provide closure, and comfort knowing that the man who stole Tyler’s life is taking responsibility for his actions.
The most challenging thing right now is not knowing when – and if – that will happen.
“It makes it hard for us, just waiting,” she said. “But it’s not our case, it’s the state’s case, and we have to hope they get it right.”