She died steps from her Tacoma apartment. Loved ones want to know what happened to her

Brittanee Parker had a way of uplifting people.

She wouldn’t let you belittle yourself, her best friend Ann “Sabi” Kinyanjui said.

“She was going to tell you something positive,” Kinyanjui said Monday.

Parker, a 32-year-old Hilltop resident, was “always laughing,” “a light” and someone who “connected on the level that people were at,” people who knew her told The News Tribune. She died earlier this month in an incident that friends and family said has left them with unanswered questions. A GoFundMe for Parker’s funeral expenses had raised $3,400 as of Oct. 14.

Tacoma Police Department spokesperson Shelbie Boyd told The News Tribune via email Monday that officers responded at about 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 4 to the area of 800 S. 11th St., where a woman was down in the street. Passersby and first responders performed CPR but were unable to save her. Parker was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

“I was shocked. I was livid how someone could just leave a person that they hurt on the street, just lifeless, basically, and I was sad because she was taken from us way too soon,” Kinyanjui said.

She said that Parker was found face-down. She doesn’t know how long she was there before someone found her.

Police initially investigated the incident as a fatality hit and run, Boyd wrote. The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to release the official cause of Parker’s death, including whether homicidal violence was involved, but more information might become available next week, according to Boyd. The Accident Investigation Team is heading the investigation of Parker’s death.

Parker’s cousin, Luke Mann, said her family was notified of Parker’s death on Oct. 10, six days after she was found dead. Her coworkers had been trying to check on her for several days after she didn’t show up to work and wasn’t responding to calls, which was very unlike her. Mann knew Parker had been going through some rough times recently and was worried. He was planning to show up to her workplace just to make sure she was OK when he received the news from his aunt.

“She made sure I was not driving and told me the Medical Examiner’s Office was going to call me next,” Mann said, his voice breaking during a phone interview with The News Tribune.

Mann said he and his cousin were close and only a few years apart in age. They both had difficult childhoods and connected on that after their great-grandfather died when they were their early 20s, he said.

Kinyanjui said calling Parker her “best friend” is an understatement. Parker was family and a sister to her, she said. Once, when Kinyanjui’s mother got into a car accident and Parker and Kinyanjui arrived, the police asked who they were. “Those are my daughters,” she told them.

They were so inseparable that if Parker or Kinyanjui showed up somewhere without the other, their mutual friends would check if something was wrong.

“People would always ask, ‘Oh my gosh, are you OK? Where is she?” Kinyanjui said.

Parker was a talented dancer who performed ballroom, tap, tango and salsa, and was “absolutely amazing at it,” according to Kinyanjui. She was going to be a dance instructor and get her master’s degree to do dance therapy for people undergoing trauma, and had been practicing to run a marathon soon.

Before she died, Parker was leaving her apartment for a short time to take her beloved black lab mix, Ollie, out for a potty break in a small grassy patch near her apartment, Mann said. She left her cell phone on her bed, and he thinks she didn’t take any identification with her.

Mann said it has been frustrating that it took so long for her friends and family to find out what happened. They have been trying to reach the police and Medical Examiner’s Office but haven’t been able to get any further information, he said.

The News Tribune requested the cause and manner of death for Parker from the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office and is waiting for a response.

A celebration of life will be held for Parker on Oct. 16 at 3 p.m. at the Center for Spiritual Living, 206 N. J St., Tacoma.