Georgetown police are searching for the driver of a car that hit and killed a 19-year-old bicyclist.

Tommy Ketterhagen’s mother, Luz Ketterhagen, said she found his body Tuesday morning in the 2300 block of Patriot Way. "It was awful," she said. "It was the one thing I feared the most. I was glad I was able to hold him and talk to him and just be with him," she said.

Investigators think he was hit by a blue car sometime between 5 p.m. Monday and 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to Georgetown police. There was very little evidence at the scene, police said.

Ketterhagen was last seen riding his bicycle in the area around 5 p.m. Monday and did not return home that night, police said.

He was reported missing to the police at 10 p.m. Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, his relatives prayed near the spot where his body was found in the grass by the side of the road.

Luz Ketterhagen said her son was training to be a personal trainer and had played soccer when he attended Northeast Texas Community College last year. "He loved God and he was trying to walk a straight line and have fun at it," she said.

Tommy Ketterhagen’s father, Thomas Ketterhagen, said his son had just been among the top finishers in a bicycle race in Oatmeal this past weekend. He said that he and his wife and their other children were not bitter about Tommy Ketterhagen’s death.

"We are just devastated and hope someone will come forward," Thomas Ketterhagen said.

He said his son was a very safe bicyclist and that he doesn’t understand how the 19-year-old could have been hit by a car. "It just doesn’t fit," said Thomas Ketterhagen.

A neighbor, Diana Price, said Ketterhagen was a competitive cyclist who bicycled everyday.

She said she last saw him at 6 p.m. Monday on County Road 100 cycling alone toward Hutto.

"He was an attentive, polite, handsome young man and as nice as they can get," Price said. She said he came from a very "tight-knit" family.

Price said Ketterhagen was riding his bike in an area popular with local bicyclists.

Georgetown police are asking anyone with information to contact Detective Kirby Shoemake at 512-930-8491 or kirby.shoemake@georgetown.org.