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Police allege that Escobedo-Hoyo fatally struck Hickey with a silver car after hitting a light standard and another vehicle and then stripped down naked before running around the neighbourhood. Police also believe the accused killer, still naked, then confronted several area residents at their homes and asked for guns, before he was eventually arrested inside a Jeep.

Photo by Tony Caldwell / Postmedia Network

Hickey was on one of his routine walks near Seyton Drive and Hammill Court, just minutes from his home, when he was struck. The walks helped calm the teen who had long struggled with behavioural issues, but was finally finding a way forward, his family said.

His death has devastated them.

“He was the second half of me,” Hickey’s 11-year-old sister, Vicky Mellon, said Thursday evening in tears. She and her brother shared a love of drawing.

“Nick was run over like he was nothing,” his mother Tracy said. “He didn’t need someone to just leave him there in the cold snow to die.”

At his court appearance Friday, the accused complained about frostbite on his toes and the judge ordered he be examined by a doctor.

Escobedo-Hoyo — a paralegal at Auger Hollingsworth, according to his LinkedIn profile — is represented by lawyer Samir Adam and will remain in jail until a bail hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.

The community of Bells Corners has, meanwhile, banded together to help support Hickey’s grieving family. Several area businesses have donated items for a raffle, with all proceeds from the sale of $5 tickets at the Robertson Road FreshCo going to the family to help bury Hickey. Bells Corners Physiotherapy has committed half — $45 – of every assessment until Family Day to the family. Community neighbours are also pitching in to help the Mellon family with meals and household tasks.

— With files from Shaamini Yogaretnam

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