On Saturday, nearly 20 people will gather in San Pedro and head out on a boat to scatter Paul Helfen’s ashes at sea. Their grief will be joined by anger.

The person whose car hit Helfen as he rode his bicycle in North Hills June 8 didn’t stop and hasn’t been caught despite a $50,000 reward offer approved by the Los Angeles City Council.

Police said they’ve gotten some leads but not the right one.

“It makes me so angry that that person is out there, and I’m thinking that they have gotten away with it,” said Nydia Jackson, Helfen’s partner of almost 25 years.

Helfen, who lived in Northridge, was known to many in his family as “GOUP” (it rhymes with “soup”), for Good Old Uncle Paul.

Born in the northeast, he moved to California as a young man, said his nephew Chris Maloney of Valencia. He worked in real estate and sold sports cars, reveling in the fun of taking customers out for test drives in Ferraris.

“He always had that little bit of thrill-seeker in him that way,” Maloney said.

Helfen loved the outdoors and was an avid photographer and a runner who completed marathons. As he got older and developed a hip problem, he switched to biking, Jackson said.

It kept him in shape, yes, but he loved the companionship, too. Every weekend he went biking with his niece.

He also biked sometimes on nights he had trouble sleeping, Jackson said. But he was careful, wearing reflective clothing and a helmet and using mirrors and lights.

“A safety guy – nothing to chance,” Maloney said.

Early June 8, a Friday morning the week after his 76th birthday, he couldn’t get back to sleep, so he went for a ride. When he hadn’t returned hours later, Jackson knew something was wrong. He had his routine.

About 2 a.m., a vehicle struck Helfen near Nordhoff Street and Gaviota Avenue in North Hills, about 2 miles from his home. The impact threw him into some bushes. Police said the car, a Nissan Sentra from the 2007 to 2012 model years, drove away.

Bill Bustos, the lead detective for the LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division, said it’s one of five hit-and-runs out of 33 fatal crashes so far this year in the San Fernando Valley.

“That’s pretty consistent, unfortunately,” he said of the percentage of hit-and-runs.

Police quickly hit dead ends, and the City Council approved the $50,000 reward June 22, exactly two weeks after Helfen’s death.

Maloney said he’s asked himself why it’s so important the person responsible be caught. It wouldn’t bring GOUP back, after all. But he said it would at least offer “some kind of justice.”

“I’d like to know what happened. I’d like to know the truth,” Jackson said.

Bustos said a driver sometimes flees the scene of a crash in a panic or because he or she doesn’t have a license, is in the country illegally or has a warrant for his arrest. But often, it’s because the person is drunk.

Bustos said it can be hard for families to truly heal until they know what happened. And a reward can be the nudge for those who know to speak up.

“It’s maybe not right that it takes that type of incentive for somebody to do the right thing,” Bustos said. “But if that’s what it takes, we’ll take it.”

Jackson said she and Helfen were both divorced when they started seeing each other in 1988. She recalled him as a lover of puns who could always make her laugh.

“He was the most honest person that I’ve ever met, and he never tried to change anybody,” she said. “He accepted them for what they were.”

The two were planning a foreign trip next year for their 25th anniversary. They had discussed Greece, but rethought it given the unrest there, so they never decided on a destination.

After the crash June 8, authorities initially said the bicyclist appeared to be a man in his early 50s – more than two decades younger than Helfen actually was.

“All I thought was, ‘Man, if he could hear that, he’d be loving this,’ ” Maloney said.

The experience has caused Maloney to rethink the things people say after a death. When someone is Helfen’s age, loved ones often hear, “Well, at least he had a good life.”

It’s meant to be comforting, but it rings false now.

“Well, I’m sorry, it just doesn’t apply,” Maloney said. “He had a great life, and it was too short. There was no end in sight to it.”

Who to call

Anyone with information can call Valley Traffic detectives at 818-644-8000 or the LAPD tip line at 877-LAPD-247 (527-3247). People who want to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477) or text the organization by sending “LAPD” followed by a message to CRIMES (274637).

eric.hartley@dailynews.com

818-514-5610

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