Friends and family of 24-year old Emily Cathleen Dowdy sat around a table at Starbucks on Mission Boulevard mourning her sudden death. Emily was tragically struck and killed a block away by a drunk driver while crossing the intersection of Reed Street and Mission Boulevard on Saturday, Feb. 7 around 7:30 p.m. Emily was rushed to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla where she died approximately 24 hours later. Flowers placed at the scene of the accident remained throughout the week as friends and family gathered at the Starbucks, where Emily worked as a shift supervisor. Emily’s mother and brother, Ellie and Josh, had flown in from Orlando. Ellie Dowdy wore her daughter’s hat: a dark, beret-like cap prominently displaying a heart-shaped, organ donor pin. Emily wore the hat and pin the night she was hit. “She was my inspiration,” her mother said. “Whatever she wanted to do, she just did it.” Emily gave of herself completely, even after death, Dowdy said. Emily was a registered organ donor and doctors harvested her heart, lungs and other organs after she died. Her liver went to two people, including to a teenager who had about seven days to live. In the two years Emily lived on Oliver Street in Pacific Beach, she managed to build a network of friends and co-workers who loved her and scrawled messages on the poster hanging inside the Starbucks window where she worked. “You would have loved her,” Ellie said of her daughter. “You would have fallen in love with her.” Emily wrote poetry. Her family handed out a flyer with one of her poems that begins and ends: “I write not so much of what I’ve discovered./ But what I long to./ Not so much of what I dreamt of./ But what I dream for./…Searching for a strong place for my hands./ A steady place for my feet./ A pocket for future secrets./ (in searching)/” Emily also loved to travel, and once planned a trip to see her favorite band, Radiohead, in concert in the UK. Before coming to Pacific Beach about two years ago, Emily worked in theater doing “whatever she could” behind the scenes. Forty-five-year-old Alan Mabrey drove the 2004 Dodge Ram pickup that killed Emily. Mabrey was charged with second-degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter, hit-and-run and drunk driving causing death. Mabrey’s blood alcohol content was two and a half times the legal limit, according to Sergeant Jeff Fellows. Mabrey allegedly left the scene onfoot after the accident but returned later pretending to be a bystander, according to Fellows. Witnesses recognized and identified Mabrey as the driver, and police arrested him. Mabrey pled not guilty. A preliminary hearing has been set for Feb. 26 to determine if there is enough evidence to warrant a murder trial. If Mabrey is convicted of second-degree murder, he faces 15 years to life in prison, according to Deputy District Attorney Patty Herian. Mabrey might also get a consecutive sentence of five years for hit and run, which is considered a separate crime. Judge David Szumowski set bail at $2 million. About 40 family and friends of Emily’s showed up in San Diego Superior Court on Feb. 11 for the arraignment of Mabrey. “He (Mabrey) showed no concern for my daughter,” Dowdy said. “He left her lying in the gutter with her brain shattered.” Mabrey arrived in San Diego from Texas only a few days before the traffic fatality, and he had no ties to the area. Mabrey has been convicted of drunk driving five times in Texas, according to Herian. The five prior drunk driving convictions were a factor in the DA’s office filing a murder charge in a traffic fatality, according to Herian. One element a jury needs to find to convict someone of second-degree murder is “conscious disregard for life,” something Herian said appears to be shown by the defendant’s history of drinking and driving. At the arraignment, Dowdy showed pictures of her daughter to reporters. “She was my only daughter, the love of my life,” Dowdy said. “She was beautiful. Her eyes sparkled all the time. When I pried her eye open, there was no light.” The Starbucks’ window provides a glimpse into Emily’s life. Prayer-like words brightened photos of Emily smiling joyfully. They seemed to radiate the warmth many in the community felt for her. One message read: “Emily: Forever woven into the heart of the world and [into] every one of ours.”