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Mary Gibot was getting ready to go pick up her granddaughter from a Halloween party at school when she got a knock on the door no mother ever wants to answer.
 
Fort Chipewyan RCMP officers were on the other side of the door and gave her the devastating news that her daughter, Clarissa Gibot, had been killed. The 31-year-old mother of two was the victim of last week’s hit-and-run collision along Victoria Trail in Edmonton near the Yellowhead Trail overpass.

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“I thought they were telling me some sort of cruel joke. It’s like a nightmare that I can’t seem to wake up from,” said Mary Gibot, from her home in Fort Chipewyan. “To be honest, I’m probably still in shock because I really can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t believe someone left her on the road like that.

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“You just hit someone. Don’t you have a conscience? How can someone sleep at night, knowing they killed someone. There are so many questions … why did this happen?”

Gibot said her daughter had moved to Edmonton a couple of years ago and had gone down a path struggling with addiction but was turning her life around. She was just days away from moving into her own place, and she was working towards completing her education. 

Gibot was helping raise her daughter’s eight-year-old daughter and having to share the news about her mother’s death was devastating.

“To tell her that her mommy wasn’t going to come back. It was very difficult to hear her crying, asking for her mommy. Asking why somebody would hit her. I had nothing I could say to make her feel better,” said Gibot. “I couldn’t bring my daughter back for her. It’s so hard because she’s asking for her mommy and I can’t do a damn thing.”

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Gibot describes her daughter as a very caring person who would give the shirt off her back to help someone if they needed it more and her two children and her family meant everything to her.

Her daughter’s family was happy to see her starting to straighten her life around. She had dreams of one day pursuing a career in nursing because she loved to help people so much.

Now those dreams are gone.

“She was so proud of where her life was headed. I had just talked to her on the Wednesday and Thursday before the accident. She was so happy,” said Gibot.

“She loved her kids with all her heart. She never hung up without telling us she loved us. She knew how much we loved her. Now we won’t get those calls anymore, nor will we see her again. All because someone was speeding and hit her.“

‘Please turn yourself in’

Clarissa Gibot was walking westbound across the northbound lanes of Victoria Trail against the light near the Yellowhead overpass at 9:15 p.m. on Oct. 30 when she was struck and killed by a blue minivan.

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The driver failed to stop at the scene, police said, and sped away heading northbound on Victoria Trail. According to police the 2009 Volkswagen Routan that hit Gibot was reported stolen the day after the collision. Police found the vehicle later that evening damaged in the area of 62 Street and 148 Avenue and have yet to make any arrests.

Mary Gibot is pleading to anyone with any information to come forward and speak to the police to help solve her daughter’s case.

“There were people (bystanders) that tried to help her. I just want to tell them thank you for trying to save my girl. I really appreciated it,” said Gibot.

She also has a message for the driver of the vehicle.

“Please turn yourself in. Why did you do this? Why did you leave her there? She’s human. If you hit an animal or a dog or something, you stop to see if they’re OK. This is somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, someone’s niece,” said Gibot.

“Family is everything to us, and they tore part of my family apart.”

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