Nearly two decades after a mother-of-two was killed in an early morning crash in Hialeah, Florida, the woman accused of causing her death and fleeing the country has been captured.
Leydis Menendez Abdala, 52, was taken into custody in Mexico and brought back to Florida last week, according to Miami-Dade County jail records.
She faces charges of vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter in connection with the 2006 crash that killed 39-year-old Gloria Marcia Hall, according to prosecutors.
Hialeah police say that on August 12, 2006, Menendez Abdala ran a flashing red light at 68th Street and struck Hall’s vehicle shortly after 4 a.m.
Hall died at the scene and Menendez Abdala was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Hall’s brother, Miami Police Commander Joaquin Freire, said he still remembers the knock on the door that changed his family forever, CBS News reported.
“I get a knock on the door, it’s two police officers from another jurisdiction and they’re like, ‘do you know a Gloria Hall? I said ‘yes, that’s my sister, why? She was involved in an accident.’ They’re like, ‘she didn’t make it,’” Freire recalled.
“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is sit my mom down and my dad and then her daughters, my nieces, and tell them ‘your mom died this morning.’”
He said Menendez Abdala admitted to being impaired in a statement taken at the hospital.
“They interviewed her and she pretty much signed a statement saying that she had been impaired, she had been drinking,” Freire said in a 2023 Instagram post. “By the time Monday rolls around, they go to pick her up, she’s gone.”
During a court hearing Sunday, prosecutor Laura Adams told the judge that Menendez Abdala was dating someone inside the Hialeah Police Department at the time of the crash.
She alleged that the boyfriend “gave her the heads up” about the toxicology results, prompting her to flee the country.
Prosecutors say Menendez Abdala left Florida on September 10, 2006, and lived in Mexico until U.S. Marshals brought her back to Miami last Friday — after 19 years on the run. Her defense attorney entered a written plea of not guilty on her behalf, CBS News reported.
For Hall’s family, the arrest represents a long awaited step toward justice.
“There are no words that can express the pain that we have endured for the past 19 years of having Gloria Marcia Hall, a mother, daughter, and sister who was taken from us due to the criminal and reckless actions of a person who has shown NO remorse,” Freire said in a statement Monday. “Now, nearly two decades later, we are one step closer to justice for Gloria.”
“We are elated that justice is finally being pursued,” he added.
“While nothing can erase our pain, knowing that Gloria’s case has not been forgotten brings us strength and peace.”
Menendez Abdala remains in custody and is expected back in court on Monday.
