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BRIGHAM CITY — Long after the death of an officer, their families are left to deal with that loss.
On Monday, state troopers and widows of officers brought Christmas to the family of Utah Highway Patrol trooper Eric Ellsworth, who was killed in the line of duty last month.
Sirens were heard as Santa Claus made a special trip to the Ellsworth home Monday morning. Janica Ellsworth and her three sons: Bennett, Ian and Oliver, got a Christmas load dropped off in their living room.
“These officers are heroes, especially to their own children,” Nannette Wride said. “Their children think that they walk on water, and these men do. They’re brave.”
Trooper Ellsworth’s boys want to follow in his footsteps.
"The little boys, I just asked them what they want to be when they grow up, and they all said, 'a police officer,' so yes, this is their life and this is what they want to be," Wride said.
She has seen it before. She lost her husband, Utah County deputy Corey Wride, almost three years ago.
“Christmas is the hardest, because you know your house is empty, and you want that loved one there, and they’re not. They’re really missed.”
Speaking from personal experience, Wride said she wanted to be there for the Ellsworth family, especially for Christmas.
“I know personally as a fallen family, it's horrible. I hate it personally,” she said. “But we wanted Janica not to hate this year and to let her know that she's so loved; not only by the officers in our whole state, but just people that have been where she's at."
Trooper Ellsworth, 31, was hit by a car on Nov. 18 while trying to direct other vehicles around a traffic hazard along a rural stretch of state Route 13 near Garland, Box Elder County. He died Nov. 22 after several days in the intensive care unit at Intermountain Medical Center.
"These fallen families, they are completely shattered, and for a widow mentor to come in, for the child survivor to come in and give them hope, breathes new life into them and lets them know they're loved” Wride said.
Someone not there in person, but watching over the internet from Pennsylvania is trooper Royce Capehart. He rallied friends in law enforcement and gathered 35 gifts from 35 different states. Gifts included police cars, a kid motorcycle and a sort of tribute display, made with Ellsworth's gloves, badge and license plate.
“To know that a trooper from another state saw these young men and saw our trooper and put the effort forward to gather all those things, it means the world to us,” said UHP Lt. Lee Perry, who was Ellsworth’s most recent supervisor.
“I guess for me this is, Eric's still here. He's kind of, I look at Eric's spirit in all of this,” Perry said. “This is what Eric would do for any one of us."
All of this was put together with the help of the Blue Haven Foundation, an organization Wride helped form after she lost her husband. Its purpose is to assist surviving spouses and families of law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty.
Wride and Erika Barney, whose husband, Unified Police officer Doug Barney, was shot and killed while checking on a man who had left the scene of a traffic accident in Holladay almost a year ago, were there to offer their ongoing support to the family.
“So in those hours where you're quiet and you need help and it's the middle of the night, just holler at anybody,” Nannette Wride told Janica Ellsworth. "It's tough. It's really hard, but you can do this, and we just want to give you hope and surround you with that."
Contributing: Viviane Vo-Duc
