A 21-year-old Hispanic woman was arrested on Sunday in South Florida, accused of fatally hitting a man in Dania Beach and fleeing the scene, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Keila Isabel Maldonado allegedly ran over the victim —a man whose identity has not been disclosed— in the early hours of Saturday, shortly after 1:30 a.m., on the 200 block of Sheridan Street, east of US-1. Emergency services found him lying in the roadway and pronounced him dead at the scene.
What allowed the detectives to trace Maldonado was a forensic detail: an identification number found on a fragment of debris that the vehicle left at the scene.
That lead led to a 2025 Hyundai Sonata that appeared on the second floor of the Lexus of North Miami garage, a dealership located in North Miami Beach where the young woman worked. An employee at the location alerted the authorities after noticing the damage to the car.
According to the arrest report accessed by CBS News, Maldonado had taken the rental car without the dealer's permission. When questioned by a coworker, she asked how much it would cost to repair the damages and admitted that she had hit someone riding a scooter.
The report also states that, after the impact, he drove to a nearby shopping plaza, observed for about an hour how the paramedics arrived, and left without speaking to the police.
Maldonado returned with the investigators to Broward County and was arrested. She faces two charges: failing to stop or remain at the scene of an accident resulting in death, and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.
A judge set her bail at $51,000. At the time of her arrest, she was held in the main jail of Broward, and there was no lawyer registered in her name.
The accident occurred in front of the New Bethany Tabernacle church. Its pastor, Edvard Legrand, reacted with alarm and made a plea to drivers in the area: "Wherever you go, whether you're coming from the beach or just on the road, please slow down a bit. Thirty seconds can change your life and someone else's."
Under Florida law, leaving the scene of a fatal accident is a first-degree felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of four years in prison and a maximum of 30 years, in addition to a fine of up to $10,000 and a license revocation for at least three years. The law does not require proving that the driver caused the death; it is sufficient to show that the accident resulted in death and that the driver failed to fulfill their legal obligations.
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