Festive evening ends in tragedy
Father and daughter, 5, were fatally struck while walking home after trick-or-treating
It should have been a festive night of costumes and candy for a first-time trick-or-treater and her daddy. Instead it ended in death in the middle of Griffin Road. Father and daughter died while crossing the busy street in the dark shortly before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Davie police said.
Carlos Alvarado Amaya and his 2- and 5-year-old girls, Kaylee Orellana Cruz and Heidy Orellana Cruz, were in a crosswalk but had walked into the path of an oncoming Cadillac that tried to stop but could not, police said.
Amaya, 46, and Heidy, a kindergartner at Silver Ridge Elementary who had begged her parents to let her go trick-or-treating for the first time, died at the scene in the 6600 block. They were a couple blocks from home.
Amazingly, little Kaylee survived. “The 2-year-old is good, thanks to God,” said her mom, Maria Orellana Cruz. “She got a little hit on the head, but she’s OK.”
Kaylee was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood as a precaution and was later released to her mother.
Heidy, costumed in a pink jumper with floppy puppy ears atop her head, was dressed as a pup from the animated Paw Patrol series, her mother told WPLG-Ch.10.
“They were coming from the joy that there was,” Cruz told WFOR-Ch.4. “She wanted to go trick-or-treating in her costume.”
Amaya, a landscaper originally from El Salvador, and his daughters were in a designated crosswalk but street lights were not on, making it especially dark.
“I’m left here along with my kids,” said Cruz, who also has a 15-year-old son living at home. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to send two bodies back to El Salvador. I don’t want to leave them here [because] he has all his family in El Salvador.”
Police are investigating whether the button that triggers the crossing signal had been pushed before Amaya and his daughters ventured across the road.
“The street lights were off. It was very dark,” police spokeswoman Vivian Gallinal, said Thursday at a news conference. “There are also some bushes and trees in the center median where the crosswalk is that would probably make it hard to see.”
The eastbound white 2011 Cadillac was traveling at least 45 mph, Gallinal said.
The driver, Jocelin Butterfield, 30, of Fort Lauderdale, saw Amaya and his children, Gallinal said, but could not stop before hitting them.
Neither speed nor alcohol appear to be factors in the crash, she said.