TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – “We’re not done.” Those are the words coming out of the mouths of Traverse City Police Department’s Detective Bureau Capt. Keith Gillis and Traverse City FBI Special Agent Garrett Croon at a recent press briefing regarding the case of the decade-old unsolved hit-and-run homicide of Kelly Ann Boyce-Hurlbert.

Twenty-nine-year-old Kelly had been riding her bike home after a double shift at her job at a local bar and grill shortly before 2:00 a.m. on July 5th, 2013 when she was hit by an unknown vehicle in the 600 block of Washington Street and dragged for approximately 540 feet until she was ejected from under the vehicle after the driver turned into an alleyway. She died of multiple blunt injuries approximately four-and-a-half hours later at a local hospital.

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On Wednesday, June 28th, a week before the 10-year anniversary of Kelly’s death, Capt. Gillis held a press briefing to assure the public that they are still working on solving the homicide and urged the public to call in tips regarding the case. The cold case is Traverse City’s only remaining unsolved homicide and Capt. Gillis said that the police and EMT workers who were involved that early July 5th morning took it personally. That was evident by observing a former police officer, Kevin Dunklow, at the press briefing. He had come to offer support to the family and was called a “friend” by Kelly’s mom.

Local law enforcement involved in the case made it clear at the press briefing they have not given up on solving the case and asked for tips, hopefully new tips, so that they can give justice to Kelly and closure to her family.

Kelly’s husband, Paul Hulbert, did not attend the recent press briefing. Neither did her father Steve or brothers Craig and Scott. Present at the briefing, in addition to law enforcement and the media, were Kelly’s mother, Michelle Boyce, sister Nicole Nostrandt, sister-in-law Shaylan Boyce and her young sons as well as Kara Schulz, one of Kelly’s best friends.

Capt. Gillis told the family and the community during the press briefing that the killing of Kelly was a “devastating event for the family and community in general.” He continued, “Our department, the Traverse City Police Department, with other agencies has been working diligently the last ten years to solve this case. We’ve had over 1,000 tips. We’ve had thousands of hours working this case and are still looking at tips and leads to make an arrest in this particular incident.”

Capt. Gillis thanked everyone, including those behind the scenes, who have been involved with the case including the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI, the Michigan State Police and their crime lab. Also involved over the years are reported to be the Traverse Narcotics Team and the state attorney general. Capt. Gillis said, “All these agencies have been with us since the very beginning and we’re not done….all of those resources are still in the game to help us do whatever we have to do to solve this case.” In addition to those resources, various police agencies out of the jurisdiction, some in other states, have also offered support when needed.

Capt. Gillis added, “We are still looking for tips. The information is important for some closure, most importantly for the family. And the officers that were involved in this particular incident have all taken it very personal as far as what needs to be done.”

FBI Special Agent Croon was just as adamant that every resource available would continue to be used to solve this case. Croon said, “The FBI is fully invested in this investigation” and said the person or persons who killed Kelly should know that the investigation is not going away. He said, “The FBI continues to allocate resources to this matter and we will throw every resource available to include FBI resources in Detroit and our laboratory in Quantico, Virginia to this investigation to bring those responsible to justice because Kelly didn’t deserve this and it’s not going away.”

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It was learned at the press briefing that the FBI has deployed resources in multiple states to assist with the investigation including interviews and forensic investigative measures. The FBI was requested to assist with the investigation by the Traverse City Police early on during the investigation and have been a solid partner ever since.

Over the years, law enforcement has investigated more than 1,000 tips and those investigations have led to persons of interest but no arrests. Capt. Gillis said, “As far as police officers involved, we all have our instinct on what happened…Somebody out there knows what happened – or somebody out there said something to somebody that would lead us to some evidence for prosecution.”

There has been evidence that has been looked at during the investigation including hundreds of pieces of evidence over the decade that have been sent to the Michigan State Police crime lab for comparison purposes. However, information collected at this point is deemed to be circumstantial. It’s a matter of getting the right tip to match up to the evidence collected (or yet to be collected) to be able to lead to the arrest of the right suspect.

Capt. Gillis explained, “Obviously, a case of this nature, we want to make sure that we do exactly how we’re supposed to do it. We don’t want to do a search warrant and have everything thrown out because we didn’t do the search warrant right or have enough probable cause for that…There’s a lot of things that go into play here. We can’t go off reasonable suspicion.”

Some of the evidence law enforcement collected includes a phone dump of approximately 90,000 phone numbers that pinged off the closest cell phone tower the day of the hit-and-run. That large number of phone numbers is similar to the number of residents who lived in the whole county of Grand Traverse during that time. So many phone numbers were collected because Kelly was killed during the busiest time of the year in the city of Traverse City with visitors flocking in to celebrate Independence Day and a local festival. But even with a large amount of phone numbers to keep track of, Capt. Gillis said at the briefing, “If we get the right tip, we have the information from that particular day.”

The death of Kelly happened during the very busy Fourth of July holiday in Traverse CIty in 2013. Besides celebrating America’s birthday, there was the Cherry Festival mixed in and a day full of activities including an air show, a parade, a concert and many other events for the hometown crowd and the approximately half a million visitors who come to participate in the festival each year.

It was during that celebratory time, that the city also had a tragedy. Shortly before 2 a.m.. in the early morning hours of July 5th, screams were heard in the 600 block of Washington Street after Kelly was hit from behind by a dark SUV or truck while riding or walking beside her bicycle. After being hit, she became entangled with the vehicle and she was dragged down the street in what Capt. Gillis calls a “gruesome scene.” She continued to be dragged to an intersection near a local park, around the corner onto Railroad Avenue, and then the driver went down a dark alleyway used by the local residents who lived on Washington and Webster Streets. The alleyway had room for the residents who lived on both streets to park their vehicles on the back their property or in their garages as most of the homes didn’t have vehicle access on the main roads.

It was there that Kelly ended up, beside the alleyway, between Railroad Avenue and the sidewalk, in an area very close to the back of the property of her own home. The bike had ended up on Washington Street where she had been hit.

Image Credit: JP Isbell

Kelly had been riding her bike home after completing a double shift of waitressing at the local pub and brewery, North Peak Brewing Company. After she was done working, she stopped by the bar, Kilkenny’s Irish Pub House, to listen to her husband Paul’s band which was in the same building as North Peak. The band finished their set around 1:00 p.m. and they started packing up their equipment. Kelly hung out at the bar until 1:45 a.m.

The podcast, Already Gone, which looked into the case, reported that her husband, Paul, said about Kelly riding home alone, “We both ride our bikes every day. I didn’t ride my bike that day because I had my musical equipment with me.”

(Heading east on Washington St. towards the intersection of Washington St. and Railroad Ave)

The podcast also said that she always rode her bike very close to the curb of the street to stay out of the way of traffic – but that she had still been hit by an unknown driver who left the scene of the crime.

The first 911 call came in at 1:56 a.m. and local police had arrived at Kelly’s side in minutes. She was in and out of consciousness while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. According to the podcast, Kelly had told the police, “They tried to kill me… they tried to run me over.”

It’s unknown who “they” are or if “they” is one person or several people. And although the police are unsure about what kind of vehicle hit Kelly due to conflicting witness reports with some saying it was an SUV and others calling it a truck, reports say that Kelly had identified it as a dark or silver SUV.

Was Kelly aware that she was being followed? Was she trying to get away from someone that she thought was targeting her?? Without Kelly around to tell us, the answers to these questions are unknown.

(Corner of Washington St. and Railroad Ave., showing how far away the alley is – past white fence)

(Entrance of alleyway, near where Kelly was found)

Laying near the alleyway, Kelly had been going in and out of consciousness due to her injuries. She was a petite woman, only 5’2”, weighing 132 pounds. She had blue eyes, dark brown hair with red dye streaks and two tattoos – one with a dove that said “remembering to love” and one that said “I love him.” Kelly was described by many as a very kind and very accepting person with a lot of friends. Her sister, Nicole, described her as “happy-go-lucky” who lived life to the fullest. Her obituary said she was always happy and full of laughter, a lover of life and loved by all.

While Kelly lay in the alleyway, she gave the police her husband’s phone number to contact him about the accident. The podcast said that after he arrived home a short time later, he was surprised that his wife wasn’t there yet, having left the bar before he did. He received a call from the Traverse City Police who informed him of his wife’s accident. The podcast reported it was then that he looked outside and could see flashing lights from the ambulance down the street.

Because spouses are almost always looked at first in the homicides of their significant others, Michigan News Source asked Capt. Gillis if Paul Hulbert had been cleared as a person of interest. Capt. Gillis said that he was never a suspect to be cleared as there were people with him to confirm where he was.

Kelly was rushed to Munson Medical Center and taken into the operating room. According to the autopsy report, she died at 6:24 a.m. of blunt force injuries including those to her chest, ribs, lungs, abdomen, thigh and other extremities.

Speculation about the accident being tied to previous hit-and-runs in the area still exists and Capt. Gillis said they are not ruling out that one or more of the incidents could be related to Kelly’s case. In 2012, a year before Kelly was hit, on June 28th around 1:00 a.m., a pregnant Kylee Bonne had been riding her bike in an area not too far away from Washington Street when she was struck by a dark SUV or truck. She has said that she was targeted and told the media, “As soon as I turned around, I heard it accelerate and it veered toward me.” She was almost six months pregnant at the time and luckily, the baby survived the incident. Bonne ended up with a broken leg. She had told the Traverse City Record Eagle, “I’ve played it over in my head a million times, and I just can’t see any way it was an accident. There were no other cars on the street, and I was easily avoidable.”

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Two years before that, on July 5th of 2010, a 39-year-old female bicyclist was struck around 2:15 a.m. downtown on State Street by what was observed to be a full-sized pickup truck. The cyclist suffered minor injuries. This puts the total at three. Three women in three years who were riding a bike downtown and were hit around July 4th early in the morning hours. Other incidents with bicyclists being followed or harassed downtown have also been documented.

 Even though Kelly was killed ten years ago, Grand Traverse County Prosecuting Attorney Noelle Moeggenberg told the Record Eagle that there is no statute of limitations on the charges her office would be seeking. She said, “Based on the way she was killed, we believe that it would be a type of a homicide charge, which means there would be no statute of limitations.” Although the time passed might not allow for “leaving-the-scene charges,” the homicide can be charged forever, she said. According to the Michigan Vehicle Code, vehicular homicide is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines that range from $10,000 to $20,000.

Five years ago, all of the law agencies involved in Kelly’s hit-and-run had a press conference to report that they had gotten together to review the case with the help of the state attorney general. Then-Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Bob Cooney had told the Record-Eagle that everyone had intensified their efforts in the case, conducting a month-long inquest of witnesses and evidence. It was during that time that Cooney was able to get an unknown number of persons of interest re-interviewed under oath, adding a threat of perjury for witnesses who may provide untruthful statements to them.

Early efforts by the local police to nab the suspect in the beginning of the investigation included canvassing neighborhoods, collecting video from homes and businesses, going through receipts from the bars, restaurants and hotels in the area, talking with body shops and getting information from cell phone towers.

Unlike in previous years, there is no public memorial or public bike ride this year to honor Kelly. Her family and friends will be spending this time remembering Kelly privately and hoping that someone will come forward with a tip that will lead the police to find and arrest the person who hit and killed Kelly. They also expressed concern that another similar incident could happen during the Cherry Festival this year. It’s not an easy time for the family to get through which is probably why Kelly’s husband Paul is also laying low this year and planning to honor Kelly’s memory by doing something private.

According to Paul’s Facebook page, he spent several days in Glacier National Park. He said, “I came to Glacier because it’s been ten years since my lovely wife, Kelly, passed away. I came to be alone, to reflect, and to honor her in a place that is proportionate to the beautiful person she was. I expressed my gratitude for the person she has helped me become. The strength she gave me helped me climb mountains. The calmness she instilled in me helped me stop to appreciate the wildflowers. The perspective she taught me helps me be certain, that this was time well spent.”

The Traverse City Police and FBI used Cherry Festival week to try to generate tips with media coverage and postings on Facebook and Twitter to spread throughout the county, the state and the rest of the country. The family expressed their gratitude at the press conference to the police and the media for keeping the story in the public.

Kelly’s mom Michelle said at the press conference, “She (Kelly) deserves justice.” She continued, “Guilt’s a terrible thing…and you would think somebody would’ve said something and can’t believe somebody else hasn’t repeated it.” She asked, “How do you look in the mirror everyday after you did something like this? You gotta look in the mirror and know what a horrific thing you did.”

The Benzie County Record Patriot reported at the end of July in 2013 that a $50,000 reward had been issued for information leading to the arrest of a suspect. The newspaper said, “Much of the money has been put up by Northern Michigan businesses and individuals, but $10,000 was raised locally at Graceland Fruit Company” where her sister Nicole Nostrandt worked. Nostrandt said, “My fellow employees have put up $5,000, and Graceland has put up a $5,000…Everybody has been very generous in the search for the person responsible.”

The FBI is also offering a reward of up to $25K for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Kelly Boyce-Hulbert’s death.

The media coverage of the case this past week has already resulted in tips being called in. Up to that point, Capt. Gillis says there were “zero tips that we have not looked at, that we have not investigated.” Now they have more. And they hope there are more to come. Everyone involved is hoping for the right tip to bring about the justice and closure that is needed for Kelly’s family, friends and the rest of the Traverse City community.

When asked how he thinks the case will be solved, Capt. Gillis has a hunch. He said “It’ll probably be a tip and a confession. A tip will lead us to the suspect…” He said that the person or persons who did this has had to live with it for ten years and it was expressed by Kelly’s family and law enforcement that someone’s conscience could lead to an eventual arrest – whether that is manifested in the guilt of the suspect or a third party who knows what happened.

If you have any information concerning this case, please call Capt. Gillis at the Traverse City Police Department at 231-995-5170 or email the department at traversecitypolicedepartment@traversecitymi.gov. You can do so anonymously.