A teenager in Florida is facing multiple homicide charges after allegedly killing a married couple while driving his new car at nearly twice the posted speed limit.
Alberto Oswaldo Yanez Quintana, 17, was arrested Thursday in connection with the February 14 crash that killed Patricia Fajardro De Cardona and her husband, Hugo Cardona Valencia. The collision happened around 6:30 p.m. in Pembroke Pines, a city about 25 miles north of Miami, according to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime.
According to Broward County court records, Yanez Quintana is facing two counts of vehicular homicide and five counts of reckless driving causing bodily harm or property damage.
Investigators believe Yanez Quintana was attempting to show off his new car, a 2019 Dodge Charger, to his passengers.
“The defendant left Westfork Plaza with the intention of showing his friends how fast his new car was,” according to the waiver.
Yanes Quintana allegedly collided with the married couple as they were turning left at a stop sign.
“The force of the impact split the silver Ford in half,” the affidavit stated, adding that a victim, identified as Cardona by local media, was ejected from the vehicle.
The affidavit states that video from a nearby Tesla “captured the crash.” “The Tesla video depicts a grey Dodge Charger traveling at a high rate of speed before impacting a silver Ford Fusion.”
Cardona died at the scene, despite first responders’ efforts to save his life. Valencia, Cardona’s husband, sustained a broken spine, a brain bleed, multiple fractures, and required multiple blood transfusions, according to the affidavit. He died less than ten days after the collision due to his injuries.
Valencia was 84 years old. Cardona’s age was not immediately known.
A third victim sustained a foot and spinal injury, which included a fracture and multiple damaged vertebrae.
Yanez Quintana, meanwhile, was treated for minor injuries following the crash, according to the report.
A witness, whose name was redacted from the affidavit, told police, “Yanez Quintana does not know how to drive and should be ‘locked up.'”
The posted speed limit was 45 mph, according to the affidavit. According to police data, Yanez Quintana was traveling at 85 mph in the seconds leading up to impact.
Police believe that if he had been driving at the speed limit, the disaster could have been avoided.
“A time-distance calculation was conducted and the results determined that if the Dodge Charger was traveling at the speed limit of 45 mph, the Ford Fusion would have had an additional 2.61 seconds to cross the intersection, and the crash would not have occurred,” according to the petition.
Another witness told police that Yanez Quintana had been taking “heavy turns,” or accelerating during his turns, and had “rapidly accelerated” while driving. According to police, these statements “highlight the defendant’s intent on showing off his new car and what speeds it was capable of.”
Yanez Quintana “weaved around other (slower) vehicles on the roadway while continuing to accelerate to unsafe/unreasonable speeds,” according to the affidavit. “The defendant’s actions directly caused serious injury to not only his passengers, but also the deaths of an unsuspecting motorist and his passenger.