Man found with skull fracture after Westport bar hop. Family says he was attacked
Rachel Kelly of San Diego doesn’t usually check her son’s location, but says she’s grateful she did last weekend, because on Saturday she saw her son Erik Kelly, who lives in Baldwin City, Kansas, was in a Kansas City hospital.
“I lost it,” she said. “I called and the neurosurgeon answered. I fell to the floor. It was the worst feeling being so far away from him.”
The 22-year-old recent college graduate had been found bleeding from his head in an alley on Pennsylvania Avenue in Kansas City’s Westport entertainment district by a Good Samaritan shortly before midnight Saturday, his mom Rachel Kelly soon learned.
Alayna Gonzalez, spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department, said officers and emergency responders were sent to the area of 4100 Pennsylvania Avenue around 11:30 p.m. Saturday where they found Erik Kelly in an alley with what they said was an unknown injury.
“I just want to know what happened because that’s not my baby’s character to be violent or to fight with anybody,” Rachel Kelly said.
The neurosurgeon told her over the phone that Erik Kelly was in his second surgery. They had found a second brain bleed and weren’t sure if he was going to make it. She was told to wait a few hours for an update.
“That was the longest two hours of my life, sitting at the kitchen table,” Rachel Kelly said. “They called back and said he was in ICU and that the surgery had gone okay, but the next 24 hours were crucial.”
The next evening, Rachel Kelly was by Erik Kelly’s side in Kansas City with his dad, William Kelly, and her youngest son, 19-year-old, Tyler Kelly. When she saw Erik Kelly in the hospital bed, she remembers falling to her knees and praying.
“It was hard to see him, his head was wrapped up and at the time he was on the ventilator, and he was hooked up to so many tubes, giving him medication for pain, blood pressure, all kinds of stuff,” she said.
Why Erik was in Westport
According to what the family has learned, Erik Kelly arrived in Westport for a bar crawl at 10 p.m. Saturday with some new friends he had made in Lawrence the week before. They were planning on staying at an AirBnb within walking distance.
Erik Kelly’s father has been in contact with a few of those friends, according to Rachel Kelly, who told him that they lost Erik Kelly around 11 p.m.
He was found by a passerby in an alley on Pennsylvania Road, bleeding from the head and only partially clothed. He had been dressed as a monk for Halloween weekend, with a hooded robe, but Rachel Kelly said he was found shirtless in his sweatpants.
“He had never been out there,” she said. “It was just a night out with the guys is what he thought.”
Erik Kelly graduated from Baker University in May and just started a job at Shamrock Financial two weeks before, his mom told The Star. He’d just received his first paycheck Friday night, and had told his mom that he was so excited and loved what he was doing.
To his family, it’s a cruel twist to what seemed like a promising time in the young man’s life.
“He fell in love with Kansas when he came out here from San Diego,” his mother said. “He made a life for himself out here and he was so happy.”
Erik’s road to recovery, as family seeks answers
According to Rachel Kelly, everything around Erik Kelly’s next steps are in the air while doctors monitor his brain swelling and see what his cognitive functions looks like, but she said the progress he’s made in the first few days have been positive.
“God willing, it’ll be quicker than that because they said already the fact that he’s talking within 48 hours is amazing,” she said. “They were able to take out the ventilator within 48 hours, and they said that’s huge. He’s fighting, he wants to breathe on his own.”
Doctors, who told Rachel Kelly the injuries were likely caused by blunt force trauma, said rehabilitation, motor skill assessments and speech assessment could take months to a year. Part of his skull will need to be replaced with a prosthetic once the swelling goes down.
“Hearing that made me sick to my stomach that he was that brutally attacked,” she said.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family pay for Erik Kelly’s medical expenses. As of Wednesday at noon, nearly $10,000 had been raised. Many donations came from friends, family and coworkers, but Rachel Kelly said she was shocked at how many came from strangers.
“(I’ve been) thanking everybody for their prayers and keeping them up, because I do believe that they’re working,” she said. “I don’t think that he’d be recovering so quickly had it not been for such good energy and love and prayers from everybody.”
The Kelly family heard from the Kansas City Police Department that a detective would be assigned to the case, but that they would like a statement from Erik Kelly first.
“We’re like, he just had two brain surgeries, and he can barely give us a thumbs up, he’s not gonna be able to give a statement for God knows how long,” Rachel Kelly said.
William Kelly has been in touch with Westport Security to see if his son was seen in any of the footage. According to Rachel Kelly, they told him they are willing to turn in what they have to investigators.
Gonzalez said they are working to determine the cause of Erik Kelly’s injuries.
“If the victim sustained injuries as a result of an assault this would be investigated no differently than any other assault case, which would include obtaining any evidence such as surveillance footage,” she said in a statement. The investigation is ongoing.
“(Erik’s) the most gentle giant,” Rachel Kelly said. “If anybody saw anything, I don’t hold anger or hate or anything, I just wanna know if we can figure out what happened, because Erik didn’t deserve this to happen at all.”
