ORLANDO, Fla. – The mother of a 19-year-old man killed in an Orlando hit-and-run crash in April is asking for any tips that could help lead authorities to the driver responsible.
The Florida Highway Patrol said all possible leads “have been exhausted,” and Crimeline has put up two new billboards on Orange Avenue to help generate new tips regarding the April 2 crash that killed Anthony Mejias.
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FHP released video of the incident in mid-April in an attempt to get new information and help find the driver. A car traveling south on Orange Avenue hit Mejias and drove off, troopers said. Mejias was taken to a hospital where he died on April 3.
Vivian Blanco, Mejias’ mother, spoke Friday afternoon near one of the newly installed billboards to ask anyone with information to report it to authorities.
She said it’s difficult for her to accept that because no one made a call in the days after the crash, her son was forced to spend his last moments without her.
“Perhaps it wouldn’t have changed the impact it had on my son’s body but I would have known and I would have been able to be with him. I spent six days in these streets looking for my son. I went to that hospital and because I couldn’t identify, or they couldn’t identify my son as my son, I couldn’t be with him in his last breath,” Blanco said in a message to her son’s killer. “I couldn’t hold him, I couldn’t let him know that he was loved. That is something that haunts me to this day, that he had to leave Earth feeling abandoned, rejected, robbed, hit, abused and I couldn’t, as mom, I couldn’t hold him.”
She said her son was her rock, the joy of their family and a hero to his 6-year-old sister. According to Blanco, he had never been away from home until he left for college earlier this year.
Blanco said Mejias was traveling from Tallahassee back home to South Florida at the time of the crash. He had a connecting bus stop in Orlando but was unable to get on the second bus because he didn’t have an ID.
In the days after the crash, Blanco and her sister came up to Orlando looking for her son, posting signs around town, reporting him missing to police departments and doing everything else they could think of to locate him.
The FHP said the man was from Pembroke Pines and his mother was able to identify him with authorities. The agency also said leaving the scene of a fatal crash is a first-degree felony. Lt. Kim Montes said had the driver not fled the scene, they may not be facing criminal charges.
Officials with the FHP described the suspect vehicle as a small silver or gray car and said it appears about 23 seconds into the video they’ve gathered, passing a semi-truck in the opposite direction. She said because of the crash, there is likely damage to the front of the vehicle, specifically the undercarriage.
Montes said someone has information that can help solve the crime, which is why she’s asking members of the community to think about whether they saw something out of the ordinary around the time of or after the crash.
“That could be something as simple as if on April 3, the day after, you look over and your neighbor had a vehicle that’s always parked in the driveway and now it’s covered or now it’s damaged and they can’t explain why and now, this today, brings a memory back. We need to hear from you,” Montes said. “Or you saw a car parked in somebody’s backyard that fit this description that has damage.”
Troopers are continuing to encourage the public to contact Crimeline if they have any information regarding the hit-and-run crash. Anyone with information on this crash is asked to call FHP at 407-737-2213 or to remain anonymous, call Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS (8477).
“I’m a person of faith. I know that we all fall short and I know that we all sometimes mess up and if the person was scared and, I don’t know what their case was, but I also know that in order to have true forgiveness, you need to repent. You need to confess. So all I’m urging for is just confess, it’s gonna bring healing to me, to my baby, it’s gonna bring healing to that person because they will come clean. That baggage will come off and you can finally find repentance. They can finally find that healing but like this, none of us are gonna heal. I desperately pray every day to heal and find strength and understand that even in the most heart-wrenching moment that my son was in that pavement, that my God was with him,” Blanco said. “I just say to that person, we can begin to heal together.”