Margaret “Peggy” Preble’s regular evening walk on a road near her Kentucky home turned fatal when she was apparently hit by a car traveling at high speed.
According to WAVE, a local NBC affiliate, Preble was taking her usual walk along Highway 42 around 5:30 p.m. on November 11, which her husband Larry Preble was used to. He was so used to her routine that he didn’t notice until it was dark outside and she hadn’t returned.
In an interview with WAVE, he stated that he called her cellphone but received no response. He checked her location using the iPhone’s “Find My” app, which indicated that her phone was “just five minutes away” from their house.
He stated that his wife appeared to be “about 1,000 feet up the road.” He added, “I thought, ‘Oh, she’ll be home in five minutes.'” And I waited, but she didn’t arrive. So I got in my car and drove slowly up the street until I found her face down in the grass.”
Larry Preble performed CPR on his wife of 48 years, and two people stopped to assist him. One of them dialed 911, while the other took over lifesaving measures on Margaret. But, as Larry told WAVE, he knew it was too late; “she was already cold.”
When emergency services arrived, medics informed Larry Preble that “she never had a chance.” He later learned that Margaret had suffered “severe chest trauma and lung damage.” Preble also reported seeing car parts “strewn for hundreds of feet up the road.”
Investigators believed Margaret was hit at high speed and that the driver continued driving. They are still looking for the driver and have asked the public for help.
Larry Preble told WAVE, “I no longer have any feelings for anger or hatred. Just grief. But I still don’t understand how they could hit someone at that speed and then continue going.”
