Family of woman hit, killed while walking along Seward Highway left with questions

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The family of 29-year-old Lola Giles is seeking answers after Giles was identified as the victim of a vehicle versus pedestrian crash Sept. 9 along the Seward Highway.

“Everybody who knows Lola knows it’s not like her to be way out there in the middle of nowhere,” Giles’s older sister Lena John-Giles said. “She doesn’t like that highway. She would see people, you know, walking or biking on there and comment, like — make comments about it.”

According to John-Giles, her sister was living in a tent in Muldoon before her death. John-Giles added that neither of Giles’s two phones had been recovered.

According to the Anchorage Police Department, the collision is still being investigated; no charges have been filed.

According to the family, they were unaware of Giles’s death until last week because both Giles’s mom and John-Giles have new phone numbers.

“I just had a bad feeling because it wasn’t like her not to call me back ... she always blows my phone up until I answer,” John-Giles said.

John-Giles told Alaska’s News Source that she and her sister would talk to each other on the phone nearly every day.

“She loved her family; she loved her sisters, her nieces, her nephews, her mom,” John-Giles said. “She always stood up for my mom and for anybody. “She was very outgoing. She was shy and quiet at times but she had a very contagious laugh and smile.”

During their free time, the family said Giles loved makeup, the outdoors, fishing and camping, in addition to spending time with her 5-year-old daughter Naleiah.

“We were just looking at videos of her and her daughter the other day of their Snapchats, and it’s just so cute,” John-Giles said. “They were like best friends.”

Copyright 2024 KTUU. All rights reserved.