ELKHART, Ind. — Zach Martinez said he always dreamt of teaching his infant son Xavier how to play different kinds of sports. Baseball, football, he wanted his son to learn them all, especially wrestling.
“My brother he [would] teach him all kinds of stuff. My brother was a big wrestling fan,” he said during an interview on his front porch in Indiana. “But it got cut short.”
Two-month-old Xavier died Sunday. The Van Buren County Sheriff’s Office said Xavier and his mother Daria Malaga were involved in a car crash Friday night on M-51 and 89th Avenue in Decatur.
“I was just devastated,” he said. “Never thought this would happen to me.”
Deputies said that the other driver, a 42-year-old from Battle Creek, jumped the centerline and hit them head-on. Malaga was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Daria, she was an amazing woman,” he said of his late girlfriend, who had two other kids from a previous relationship. “Anybody that you ask, they’ll tell you that she’ll give you her shirt off her back if she could. She was just awesome.”
They’d been together for three “beautiful” years, Martinez said. They'd just celebrated her 25th birthday in April. Now he’s making funeral arrangements for her and his only son.
“It’s horrible,” he said. “I didn’t get to see him grow up or anything like that.”
***If you'd like to make to help the family, click here for their GoFundMe page.***
