After Dannielle Spillman, 74, was killed in an alleged hit-and-run on Mission Street this month, the story that followed sounded nothing like the woman known to her loved ones.
An attorney for 30-year-old Valentino Amil, who pleaded not guilty to murder charges Friday, alleged that Spillman had posed a threat to Amil before he accelerated his black Mercedes into her, knocking her onto the car’s front windshield before crushing her under its tires. In court on Friday, the attorney described Spillman as an “agitator” and “belligerent.”
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But in the two weeks since her death, a community of loving friends and family has shared a different image of Spillman — as a woman with decades’ worth of stories of far-flung travels, as a guitarist with a love for playing and listening to rock-and-roll music, and as a beloved elder in the transgender community with sincere benevolence and empathy for those in her orbit.
“She was so kind, so nice, someone [who], if she’s around, it’s going to be a good vibe,” said Matt Stevens, a friend and employee at Real Guitars, a guitar shop where Spillman frequently hung out. “She was loved, and it’s a huge loss for the world.”
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