Ashley Roberta, a university graduate who friends said could light up a room with her smile, died last Tuesday when she was involved in a car accident that injured another passenger and the driver. Roberta was 22.
The other passenger in the SUV, starting forward for the U.S. national soccer team Charlie Davies, was critically injured with a broken tibia and femur and fractures to the face and elbow. He is still hospitalized but expected to recover.
The accident occurred around about 3:15 a.m. when the SUV Roberta, Davies and an unidentified female driver were traveling in crashed into a metal guardrail on the southbound side of the George Washington Parkway, near the Memorial Bridge where the parkway crosses Boundary Channel. The force of the crashed crash split the SUV in two, according to media reports. Roberta was pronounced dead at the scene.
“She was hilarious and spunky, compassionate and friendly,” said Roberta’s former roommate, senior animal and avian sciences major Katie Ernest name. “She left a lasting impression on those she met without even knowing it. Ashley was the best and will never be forgotten by any of the lives she touched.”
Roberta was a native of Phoenix, Md., and graduated from Mercy High School in Baltimore. Roberta graduated from the university in May with a degree in criminology. Once out of college, Roberta lived in Baltimore and worked with Red Bull of America by organizing events at the university. She planned to attend law school and was interviewing for a job as a paralegal, said Lauren Palmere, a friend and senior family studies major. Her funeral was held Friday at Ruck Funeral Home in Towson.
Friends describe her as congenial and outgoing, and they said she never failed to seize the moment.
“She was full of life and living it to the fullest sums her up best,” Ernest said. “She took advantage of every opportunity whether socially or academically and had a million hilarious stories to back them up with.”
“She was contagious,” Palmere said. “Just by being friends with her made others more outgoing and she never left anyone out. You really can’t replace her.”
“She’s the girl in the room that everyone wants to talk to,” Palmere added. “She was the life of the party — 99 percent of the time she had a smile on her face. She’s one in a million.”
hampton@umdbk.com
