JOHNSTON COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Ryan Moeller and James Fowler will tell anyone that their mom, Joan Drake, was the best.

63-year-old Joan Drake moved from New York to North Carolina in the early 90s, when Moeller was just three years old. "It was just me and her for a while growing up down here, single mom being a nurse," Moeller shared.

A nurse by trade, but her sons called her a true nurturer at heart.

"I miss her laugh. Her laugh was infectious. She started laughing right now. Like, we would all just start laughing," said Fowler, her youngest son.

But her laughter stopped in June 2023. Drake was killed in a crash on U.S. 70 in Clayton . "My first words were, Is my mom okay? And he didn't answer," Fowler recalled the phone call he received from police notifying him of her death.

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