A FlaglerLive Special Report
By Pierre Tristam
How could the wrong person have been arrested for the triple-fatality hit-and-run crash that killed Flagler County Deputy Administrator Jorge Salinas, his wife Nancy and motorcyclist Joaquin Deno on I-4 last October?
The false arrest of 23-year-old Lindsey Brooke Isaacs of Palm Coast is not just a case of mistaken identity resulting from a concurrence of improbable events. It is also a case of sloppy and incomplete police work, if not knowingly incomplete work.
The damage to Isaacs’s vehicle was not consistent with the magnitude of the crash in question, which should have been the first red flag for investigators. More crucially, based on 911 calls and statements the night of the crash, evidence had been recorded that would have helped exculpate Isaacs and more certainly led to the charges filed only late Friday against Alisa Lee Montalvo, 47, of Deltona.
Montalvo in her Durango was a family friend of the biker who died, and the group of bikers he was with. She was traveling east with them. She was never mentioned in the initial arrest investigation, nor were references to members of the group of bikers whose eyewitness accounts would later help redirect the charges.
Instead, and possibly because FHP was trying to get out from under a civil lawsuit Isaacs’s attorney, Marc Dwyer, had filed to have her Dodge Durango released from impound months after the crash, FHP appears to have rushed the arrest of Isaacs with a woefully incomplete investigation and false conclusions based on unsupported assumptions and lack of verifiable, available exculpatory evidence.
The night of the crash, FHP had an I-4 eyewitness account by Justin Lopesilvero of a “black” Dodge Durango causing the crash. FHP relied heavily on that account to substantiate its arrest of Isaacs.
But there was a different I-4 eyewitness account by James Imundo, who was also traveling east. Imundo told Volusia County’s 911 dispatch center that a “maroon” Dodge Durango driving like a “mad person” and as if in “road rage” had caused the crash.
Imundo had a detail that Lopesilvero did not have: the first three numbers of the maroon Durango’s license plate: “458.”
Montalvo’s Durango license plate is 4589XQ.
Isaacs’s Durango license plate is RJVN10, none of whose numbers could reasonably be confused with the numbers Imundo provided.
Imundo’s information never appears in Isaacs’s arrest affidavit, suggesting that FHP either had the evidence and suppressed it, which is not credible–investigators had no reason to go down a potentially criminal route–or, more likely, had not done their due diligence and checked Volusia County’s 911 records before charging Isaacs: Isaacs’s attorney was not aware of the Imundo call to 911 as FHP would have had to make him aware of it if it had it, by the time Isaacs was charged.
Which means that FHP filed the charges not knowing of the second Durango, or assuming that there couldn’t possibly have been two dark-colored Durangos with Florida license plates in the area of the crash, near-simultaneously.
Yet that’s precisely what had happened.
Isaacs was driving home from seeing a friend in Davenport. Her license plate had been read by an LPR two minutes before the crash, west of the scene. When she professed her innocence to FHP and told a trooper “I am a good driver” the night she was first interviewed, FHP did not believe her.
FHP appears to have made a grave mistake that it sought to correct when, in quick succession Friday, the State Attorney’s Office announced that it would not pursue the eight charges FHP filed against Isaacs on April 17 as FHP arrested Montalvo hours later.
Montalvo now faces the same charges Isaacs once did, plus one: tampering or destroying evidence, as investigators learned that Montalvo allegedly took her Durango to a body shop to cover up evidence of the crash.
There is no question that the media, this site included, amplified what now appears to have been a miscarriage of justice against Isaacs by reporting the details of the investigation that led to her arrest, based on what FHP and court documents had been filed at the time. There is equally little doubt that the mistake was FHP’s, not the messengers on whom it routinely relies to publicize its arrests.
Apparently prompted in part by a speed and distance analysis by Isaacs’s attorney that proved she had been well past the site of the crash when it happened, the State Attorney’s Office stopped the mistake when it lived up to its role–as it routinely does in less high-profile cases–as the final arbiter and checks on incomplete, sloppy or indefensible police work. Assistant State Attorney Mark Willard detected alarming discrepancies in FHP’s report.
For Isaacs of course, the damage by then was already done as she sustained a merciless stoning on social media and elsewhere, before her name was cleared.
The following is a more detailed narration of the case based on the original Isaacs investigation and arrest affidavit, the Montalvo investigation and arrest affidavit the State Attorney’s Office released Saturday night, the civil suit Dwyer–Isaacs’s attorney–filed to get her Durango released, the Dwyer motion the first publicly suggested that Isaacs was innocent, and other incidental jail and court documents. (Isaacs is represented by Dwyer of Flagler Beach’s Dwyer and Knight in the civil case and by Daytona Beach attorney Patrick McGeehan in the criminal case.)
The crash took place at 9:53 p.m. on Oct. 4 in the eastbound lanes of I-4 near mile marker 107 and the DeBary/Saxon Boulevard exit.
Salinas, who was Flagler County’s deputy administrator, was driving a black Honda Pilot, with his wife, Nancy, in the passenger seat, as they were returning from a day at Disney. Joaquin Deno, 54, was riding a Suzuki motorcycle and returning from a birthday party for a child in Sanford. Mariliz Barrios-Barrios, 48, was at the wheel of a silver-gray Ford Focus.
Near the time of the crash, Lopesilvero, who provided a witness statement to investigators, was traveling east on I-4 in the center lane. A group of eight to 12 motorcycles passed him in the inside, left travel lane. What he described as a black Dodge Durango “flew by me” in the right lane, he said, estimating its speed at around 100 to 115 mph. The car drove erratically and aggressively.
“The Dodge Durango abruptly changed from the outside (right) travel lane to the inside (left) travel lane directly in front of him, and between a semi-truck, and then into a group of motorcycles,” he told investigators. “The Dodge Durango appeared to almost strike the guardrail of the center median before swerving back into the center travel lane. Within 3 or 4 seconds of swerving back into the center lane the Dodge Durango caused a crash with two other vehicles,” the Ford Focus and the Honda Pilot.
“3-4 seconds after that incident, I went to jump over to the fast lane of traffic, thinking this is just a crazy road rage incident, not knowing the severity of what happened,” Lopesilvero said in his statement. “Lopesilvero stated he was behind a semi-truck and could not see the two other vehicles he later learned were involved, however upon the semi-truck no longer blocking his view, he then observed the other vehicles, and due to such a short time frame, believed the Durango caused both accidents.”
The witness realized that the Durango also struck a motorcycle, and that it never stopped. “I could assume this accident could have been caused when the Durango swerved back across two lanes after striking the motorcycle, or maybe cutting someone else off,” Lopesilvero said. “Again, the Durango cut me off very aggressively, drove into the motorcycle, almost hit the guardrail, and swerved back into the middle lane.”
Barrios-Barrios was seriously injured, Jorge and Nancy Salinas and Deno were killed.
Based on FHP Sgt. Tiffany Jateff’s affidavit, traffic homicide investigators checked license-plate reading cameras near the time of the crash for a black Durango. The LPRs hit on the Durango belonging to Isaacs, with Florida license plate RJVN10, driving west of the crash scene at 9:51 p.m., three minutes before the crash. The same Durango was recorded by an LPR on U.S. 1 north at 10:28 at U.S. 1 and Seminole Woods Boulevard, very close to the Integra Woods apartments.
Troopers Nicholas Schmeider and Jateff went to the Integra Woods apartments and spoke with Isaacs, who told them: “I didn’t hit anything,” and if anything had happened, someone would have had to steal her car.
The troopers noted nothing more than “smudges” or “rub marks” they deemed “consistent with the Durango sideswiping a motorcycle, or it’s [sic] driver while seated in the motorcycle seat.” The “‘marks’ on the left side of the Durango [were] consistent with damage to the right side of the Focus,” according to the investigation, which provided no further details about the alleged damage to the Durango.
The affidavit had stated that “The force of being struck by the Durango caused the Focus to travel off the roadway to the left and strike the guardrail of the median.” The Durango had been processed by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office before its transfer to an FHP lot in Volusia County.
McGeehan, Isaacs’s attorney in the criminal case, in his motion to quash noted the inconsistencies in FHP’s investigation: “In its arrest warrant affidavit, crash report, and search warrant affidavit, the State alleges a massive high-speed, 100-115 mph, collision wherein the Defendant’s Dodge Durango struck a Ford Focus with such force that the Ford was sent off the roadway, into a guardrail, before reentering the roadway and colliding with a Honda Pilot, killing the occupants of the Pilot. … The State alleges that when they found the Dodge Durango, it had damage to the left side consistent with the collision with the Ford Focus. There is no mention in the investigation of damage to the right side of the Dodge Durango consistent with impacting the Suzuki.”
“The damage allegedly found by the FHP on the Durango is described simply as ‘marks,’ ‘smudges,’ or ‘rub marks,” McGeehan’s motion stated. “Additionally, one would expect to find evidence of such a high-speed, multi-impact, multi-vehicle collision on the Durango’s electronic data recorder, yet there is no mention of such evidence.”
McGeehan’s motion, filed on April 21, refers to “the state’s lone witness,” meaning that he was not aware of a second witness–of James Imundo and his call to 911 referring to the maroon Durango.
Dwyer had filed the civil suit against FHP on Feb. 5, charging replevin, an action that seeks to recover personal property unlawfully held. The suit sought to recover Isaacs’s Dodge, valued at more than $50,000.
FHP did not respond to the suit until April 28, or 11 days after it had filed the charges against Isaacs. In its response, FHP argued that arguing that no charges had been filed was moot, now that they had been filed. The judge agreed, and dismissed the suit.
By then, Assistant State Attorney Mike Willard had detected problems with the Isaacs investigation, prompting his April 27 request for “crash reconstruction and investigative support” of the arrest affidavit from Cpl. Brian Gensler of FHP’s Specialized Investigation and Reconstruction Teams known as SIRT.
On May 6, State Attorney personnel met with the SIRT team and FHP’s traffic homicide investigations unit to review the case and its discrepancies. That led to SIRT taking over the case. After reviewing the case files, SIRT assumed control of this case under Cpl. David Brunner’s direction.
SIRT’s first destination was the lot where Isaacs’s Durango was held. “The SIRT team did not find any damage on this vehicle suggesti[ng] it was involved in a crash with another vehicle,” the Montalvo affidavit states–a stunning conclusion that essentially reduces the previous investigatory conclusion to a colossal subjective error.
SIRT investigators then examined the Ford Focus involved in the crash and found several areas “to be red or maroon paint transfer” (emphasis added), not black.
The SIRT team “reviewed the names of witnesses obtained during the initial crash investigation, computer aided dispatch reports from FHP and Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, 911 callers, and the State Attorney Investigator.” All of that evidence was available and accessible to FHP’s original investigators. They did not do what the SRIT team did: reach out to the several witnesses or people involved in the crash, including other motorcyclists, for follow-up interviews.
Motorcyclists told the SIRT team that they had been at a family birthday party at Elev8 Fun Center in Sanford, along with Montalvo, who had driven in with her maroon Durango. A couple of hours later, they rode to one of the group’s houses to continue the celebration with cake. Some lost sight of others as they rode, with Montalvo and Joaquin Deno, the 54-year-old who lost his life, riding ahead.
Shane Mather gave a sworn statement to the State Attorney’s Office stating he was traveling east and saw “Deno passing him at a high rate of speed with a Durango directly behind. His initial thought was that the Durango was an unmarked patrol car chasing the motorcycle, since it was so close.” There was some passing. “After both vehicles completed passing the vehicle in front of him,” Mather’s statement, paraphrased in the affidavit, continued, Mather “observed the Durango veer across the middle lane and then into the outside lane striking Deno. The Durango then veered back across the middle lane and into the inside lane striking the right side of Focus, causing the Focus to lose control and strike the Pilot.”
Numerous additional statements the SIRT team secured corroborated and added details to the sequence of the crash, including one witness saying the black “SUV” exited off I-4 at mile marker 108. The witness, Veronica Leigh Frederico, also exited and “noticed heavy damage to the outside of the ‘SUV.’” A witness reported that the Durango’s airbag had deployed on one side.
The crash scene was eight miles from the Elev8 center. When Deno’s daughter reached the scene on her motorcycle, Montalvo had vanished.
It was the SIRT Team’s review of 911 calls that unearthed James Imundo’s description of the “maroon” Durango. In his follow-up statement, “Imundo stated he began to memorize the tag, just in case something happens because of her aggressive driving,” which included swerving across three lanes and at one point driving off the road. Initially, the Durango had pulled over to the side.
The SIRT team secured surveillance photographs of the 2021 Durango taken before and after the crash date, documenting that the car had received body work after the crash, with the “driver and left rear door on the vehicle [] visibly a lighter shade of red than the rest of the vehicle, the driver side window was not tinted, and there were no window rain guards on the driver side of the vehicle,” as there were on other parts of the vehicle.
It was only on May 12 that Brunner first went to Montalvo’s 1360 Lydia Drive address in Deltona to locate the Durango. A search warrant was obtained. Montalvo was pulled over on May 16, and the vehicle seized.
“During the post collision inspection the maroon Durango confirmed significant evidence of concealment and damage consistent with this crash,” the affidavit states. “The driver-side doors had been replaced, the curtain airbag had been unbolted/removed, and seat airbag was stuffed back into the seat. The EDR download showed the vehicle was traveling at 112 mph five seconds before the algorithm was enabled. A receipt was also located within the vehicle where four tires were balanced and mounted on November 18th.”
The SIRT investigation also determined that the Durango had been at 316 Alpine Street in Altamonte Springs, where the resident, Edwin Roman, “frequently scraps vehicle parts and other metals.” He told investigators that Montalvo brought the car to him around Oct. 9 when he took photographs of the left side damage and the vin number on the door. Roman produced the pictures of the damage and the subsequent repairs, including new tires.
“The area of this crash is in a very dark location with no streetlights or ambient lighting in the area,” the SIRT investigation found. “A maroon vehicle can appear to be black in a setting such as this during a [highly] stressful event for an untrained observer.”
The report concludes: “All this evidence supports a Maroon Durango and not a black Durango. In addition, to the facts stated above, we have probable cause to believe that the driving actions of Montalvo in a reckless manner caused and contributed to this fatal crash.”
Montalvo is at the Volusia County jail on no bond.
“This can happen to anybody,” Isaacs said Friday in a press conference in DeLand. “Being incarcerated, falsely incarcerated in jail, in G-Block, was the worst 13 days in my life.”
Me says
Hat’s off to Marc Dwyer, justice has been served.
NJ says
I remember there was a lot of pressure in Flagler County for a FAST Conviction therefore the many STUPID Mistakes by the FHP! Hopefully the FHP will learn a Powerful Lesson!
Dale says
They won’t, they never do.
Pogo says
God bless Lindsey Brooke Isaacs, and her legal defense team.
What price would you put on her suffering and losses — if they were your own?
I hope she will be able to put this behind her better than most people — the weight of it, all to often, breaks a person forever.
Ray W. says
Hello Pogo.
For over 30 years, I prosecuted or defended people accused of committing crimes.
I cannot count the number of times I have been asked just how could I defend people accused of committing crime. From my childhood, my family had always relied on a certain veterinarian. His son became a veterinarian and I continued to rely on him. One day, he, like so many others, asked me how I could defend people. I answered: “Because sometimes they just didn’t do it.” The next time I saw him, he told me that my simple response had entirely changed the way he looked at our justice system.
This article is built on the same premise. Sometimes, people just didn’t do it.
Perhaps, it is time once again for a discussion of the basics.
Our founding fathers understood just how willing ordinary people are to destroy other people’s lives. For some, hurting others is easy. There will always be people among us who will hurt anyone at any time for any reason. Not all of them will ever be criminals. Sometimes, they will be our political leaders.
Because our founding fathers studied to better understand human nature, they decided to give all of the political power necessary to convict others of crime only to judges and juries. No other person ever has ever lawfully possessed the political power needed to convict any one person of crime. Not police. Not prosecutors. And certainly not FlaglerLive commenters.
The limit on any police officer’s exercise of political power is that which is needed to allege under oath the existence of sufficient probable cause to arrest a person. Again, no police officer has ever possessed the political power needed to convict anyone.
If a police officer, prior to the time of conviction by a judge or jury, ever calls a defendant a scumbag criminal, he or she is violating his or her oath of office. Calling a defendant a scumbag is free speech. Calling a defendant a criminal prior to the time a judge or jury determines guilt is not free speech to a person who has sworn an oath of office to uphold the constitution. Anyone can surrender their constitutional rights. Defendants do it all the time when they stand in front of judges and willingly surrender certain constitutional rights. Likewise, police officers surrender their free speech right to call a defendant a criminal prior to conviction when they freely offer their oath of office.
The check and balance on the limit to an officer’s exercise of the political power to allege the existence of probable cause occurs when, within 24 hours at first appearances, a judge determines the existence, or not, of probable cause.
The case then goes to a prosecutor who also lacks the political power to convict. The limit of a prosecutor’s political power is to allege under oath the existence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In this way, a prosecutor, like the first appearance judge, is supposed to be a check and balance on a police officer’s allegation of probable cause. Mike Willard’s job in this case was to challenge the police officer’s exercise of limited political power. Rubber stamping a police officer’s allegation of probable cause is a violation of a prosecutor’s oath of office.
When I was a prosecutor, every time I signed a charging document, I alleged under oath before a notary that I had available to me sufficient evidence that, if believed to be true by a judge or a jury, would support each and every element of each and every crime charged beyond and to the exclusion of a reasonable doubt.
The check and balance on any prosecutor’s exercise of political power comes from a judge or jury. A prosecutor alleging the existence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not the same thing as a judge or a jury actually finding the existence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is very straightforward. Our finding fathers never wanted any one person to ever hold unlimited political power for an indeterminate period of time. The concept of checks and balances was their answer. Every political power defined in our state and federal constitutions has a corresponding check and balance designed to counter the exercise of that political power.
An an aside, perhaps twenty years ago, maybe more, I saw a new prosecutor sitting in a county judge’s courtroom. I knew him from years before when he had been a police detective. He had retired and then earned a law degree. Now, he was back. We talked about my client’s case. He told me that my client was guilty. I told him he lacked the political power to say that. He insisted he was right. I wrote down four words on a page off a legal pad and asked him to look it up at his leisure: “Prosecutorial misconduct I believe”. When I returned to my office, I called him. He said he was reading the cases that had came up when he used my four words in his search engine. He asked me why no one had ever taught him that a prosecutor telling a jury that he or she believed someone to be guilty was automatically reversible error if defense counsel objected and almost always fundamental error even when defense counsel failed to object. And, he was reading that a police officer telling a jury that a defendant is guilty is equally automatically reversible error when objected to, or, in most cases, fundamental error.
But all of this, in my opinion, comes down to a particularly virulent form of circular reasoning that infects so many police agencies and state attorney offices. It goes like this: Good people don’t make mistakes. Prosecutors (or police officers) are the good people. I am a prosecutor (or a police officer). Therefore, I don’t make mistakes.
I first became a prosecutor in 1986. It didn’t take long for me to realize that some of my fellow prosecutors were vengeful and hateful people. I have written of this event before. A trooper was murdered while on patrol on I-75. I heard of the event while in court. When I returned to the office of the misdemeanor division, I saw an agitated trooper standing at his wife’s desk. She was one of the three secretaries assigned to the misdemeanor division.
As I sat down in my office, I heard the trooper yell to no one in particular that a K-9 deputy had found the shooter in the woods, but the deputy had prevented him and other troopers from killing the subject while cuffed in the woods. Angered, the trooper swore that the deputy had better never need to call for assistance, because no officer was going to come to his aid.
The prosecutor who had the case later said that the deputy had had to pull his service weapon to keep the arriving troopers from shooting his cuffed suspect, telling them repeatedly that he was not going to lie for them.
If anyone thinks this was not an eye opener for me about the human condition and what certain people among us are prepared to do to others, …
I doesn’t make sense says
I always said the story didn’t sound right, I just attributed it to the reporting. However the large holes in the investigative accounts should of set off some bells at even a high school reporters mind.
Janet Sullivan says
Oh my lord. I hope Isaacs has a supportive community of family and friends. I met the Salinas family at the public service. They are strong, but this may open some partially healed wounds. Blessings for all.
FlaPharmTech says
Ms. Isaacs, I am so sorry this happened to you.
JimboXYZ says
This appears to have a pay day of sorts. Let’s see, 2 weeks in a jail cell, 8 months of uncertainty & hell over the accusations, charges, lawyers fees, court dates. When someone screws up, money doesn’t make it right, but it’s what they have to make it as right as possible. Monetized is what this society does, there’s a book deal here, maybe a movie deal from it all ?
Sounds like the “too fast, too furious” biker types that knew each other, had to have covered something up ? And the body shop ? What is their incompetence in all of this. That extensive of a makeover to repair a vehicle ? Really, replacing 2 doors & whatever else ? That’s not exactly a repair form a grocery buggy bumping into the vehicle for damages. as much as 115 mph, that’s a super speeder arrest if nothing goes wrong for a collision.
Isaacs will have PTSD from this, if nothing more than repressed ? Does she trust law enforcement ? When relatively self-proclaimed experts fit evidence to fit a crime ? Media can only go by what FHP releases.
Joe D says
OMG! What a travesty of an “investigation “ and prosecutorial errors! The scary thing is …this could happen to ANYONE!!! What if Ms Isaacs did not have access to a highly competent attorney with financial resources to conduct this VERY DETAILED independent side investigation. I know I don’t have the resources to afford such stellar legal representation. What if Ms Isaacs had to rely on a public defender? Even if competitive, I’m fairly sure the Public Defenders Office doesn’t have the added capacity and financial resources to conduct that kind of side investigation.
Incomplete /inaccurate information was used, assumptions were made by the police and prosecutor’s office. The evidence ( vehicle damage, second eye witness 911 call ) didn’t match the reports by other witnesses and the ACTUAL limited damage to Ms Isaac’s vehicle. Of course, when Ms. Isaac’s protested that she didn’t speed (confirmed by the computer travel log in HER Durango) said she didn’t cause any accident and that someone must have stolen her car ( I’m sure the unspoken thoughts of investigators and many FlaglerLive and public commentators were : “Yeah sure, they ALL say they DIDN’T DO IT”)
Forensic experiments, show that under stress (witnessing a serious accident, being the victim of a violent crime) Witness accounts can be inaccurate at times due to Emotional “Tunnel vision,” and you need to have multiple overlapping witnesses to piece together what ACTUALLY happened.
Many times traveling the 95 corridor, there have been times where drivers around me have been traveling as if they were in a video game (sometimes CHASING EACH OTHER, switching lanes). I sometimes feel like I should call 911, but I don’t have the license #, and at night I might only know it was a 4 door “dark??” Color late model sedan (unless it’s a highly identifiable brand).
Another defendant might be convinced to take a PLEA DEAL, rather than chance an unpredictable jury trial, or be subjected to the possibility of a longer prison sentence! As a parent, with young children, she might be pressured to plea to something she didn’t do for a shorter incarceration away from her children.
Because she ( or her family) could afford STELLAR legal representation, Ms Isaac’s should have her life restored ( although the emotional trauma might never go away…every time she gets behind the wheel). All the more reason to spend the money for forward and rear facing dashboard cameras in your vehicles.
Not the least concern was the initial PUBLIC PRESSURE to identify and prosecute the guilty party QUICKLY in this HIGH PROFILE CASE! That alone might account for some of the investigation FACTS to be overlooked.
I’m sure this will result in a VERY EXPENSIVE ( again paid for by TAXPAYERS) civil ( if not CRIMINAL) lawsuit.
I wish Ms. Isaacs and her family and friends the BEST in recovering from this HIGHLY PUBLICIZED incident.
Skibum says
This traffic investigation was a colossal effen screw up on the part of FHP from start to finish, and a complete miscarriage of justice! FHP is supposed to be the state’s experts at accident reconstruction, but the ones who did the initial investigation now look like complete morons, compounded by the fact that their shoddy investigation and dead wrong conclusions resulted in an innocent person being arrested and held in jail for nearly two weeks!
Those troopers who were part of the initial investigation need to be ordered to undergo remedial training before they are responsible for more instances where felony charges, arrests and incarcerations involving innocent people occur. However, I cannot help but wonder if one of the reasons for such a lazy ass investigation that went so wrong is that Florida has the least amount of highway patrol troopers on the road out of all 50 states, and they are most likely overworked, cutting corners right and left, and running from accident call to accident call simply because there are so few of them to handle traffic collisions and intoxicated drivers on Florida’s highways.
Paul Larkin says
Thank you Pierre for clarifying and unraveling with such attention to detail this very tragic set of circumstances. And very sad the deaths to the innocent parties from what appears to have been very irresponsible behavior by the individual now being charged. Is anybody else reading this wondering whether the woman now being charged was targeting the man on the mororcycle who was also killed?
Greg says
I hope that the following law suit will teach Staley and the boys a lesson on how to do their job. I hope this poor gal gets rewarded very will with the suit
FlaglerLive says
It was a Florida Highway Patrol investigation, not a Sheriff’s Office investigation.
Jim says
This kind of “police work” is what causes many people to not trust them. How could any state trooper not see that this vehicle did not collide with two other vehicles at over 100mph? Someone mentioned retraining. I don’t think you can fix stupid.
Ms. Isaacs has been terribly mistreated because the State has failed miserably. I don’t know what legal remedies she has at this point but she deserves significant compensation for seizing her car and keeping it long after it should have been clear that is was the wrong vehicle, reputational loss because the truth will not catch up with some people – ever -, for the unbearable stress of being accused of a crime she did not commit as well as the costs of her attorneys and the work they did. Let’s see if the State steps up and does the right thing.
I’d like to trust the police but I can’t after seeing something like this. What I see is that the State had so little interest in finding the ACTUAL vehicle and the ACTUAL driver who killed three people that, once they had a “vehicle” identified, so little effort was put into proving Beyond a Reasonable Doubt that Ms. Isaac’s was the actual perpetrator. So how many other people have been subjected to this same level of “investigation” and then been convicted and incarcerated, fined or otherwise punished?
This was not accidental. This was a travesty done by the State. And not a single person will be called out and properly disciplined as a result.
Hire Mona Lisa Vito says
for the FHP crash investigation team. Her general automotive knowledge would have cleared Ms Isaacs immediately. Unfortunately, Ms Isaacs first mistake was to cooperate with the police when they initially turned up – thinking they were going to act in good faith and undertake a competent investigation.
Concerned Citizen says
As a 20 plus year veteran LEO.
There is simply no excuse for this travesty of justice. Multiple Agencies and Officers need to be held accountable. And investigative procedures need to be over hauled.
If you were part of the “stoning” that occurred over this incident. You owe this young lady and her family a formal public apology.
Daybreaq says
They were. They just refuse to admit it. I read the article from her arrest. No byline like this article has; because they just state she did it … no “alleged” or even “police claim.” We were just the messenger is the cry here. But there are responsible ways to deliver the message and irresponsible ways to deliver the message. I will credit that they did leave the article up and provide update links. Other news sites did not provide update links. But instead of crying, “Don’t blame us, the messenger,” why not say, “This serves as a reminder to be better at delivering the message.” Reminding readers a suspect is innocent until proven guilty is part of the responsibility of journalists when reporting on crimes.
Steve says
This case is a stain on law enforcement, as it should be. The trooper/troopers who rushed this case and ignored critical evidence need to be held to account. Ms. Isaacs has a pretty solid federal civil rights civil case. The tort reform/Sovereign Immunity recovery limit (state court) will not apply thankfully as that would limit her recovery to $200k. She deserves every penny for what she has been through. The saddest part of all of this, FHP attorneys will fight like hell to defend this colossal screw up. Costing tax payers 100s of 1000s in legal fees/costs. In a just world, they would immediately seek mediation negotiations and stroke a check.
In the end this must lead to changes in training, oversight of investigations particularly for THIs (Traffic Homicide Investigations).
I will say this. There are far too few Traffic Homicide Troopers vs the 100s of traffic fatalities they are working. I know a trooper who is simultaneously working dozens at a time. It is impossible to be thorough and complete with the case load many are carrying. It is a top -> bottom failure at FHP.
Daybreaq says
So, one witness says he thinks it was a black Durango. Cops don’t question other witnesses on the description of the car. They just check the cameras and find a black Durango somewhere in the area at that time and send someone to pick up the car. And … just leave it in the impound lot and forget to do any kind of investigation. Then, Ms. Issac’s attorney files a suit to get the car back. They just let it go 6 months and suddenly realize if they don’t arrest her they legally can’t hold the car any longer. Oh whoops! So they lie about doing an investigation and there being damage on the car. (They claimed there were pieces missing from the car that matched what was left on the road. Her car didn’t have ANY damage! They claimed paint was left behind on cars hit that matched her car … it didn’t! The paint left on the car was maroon and her car was black and again. No scratches on her car.) They just flat out LIED so they could arrest her and I guess investigate later. They must have figured they would find what they claimed later … or maybe go in and smash the car themselves when no one was looking? Then, they put her in jail for 13 days without bail until her attorney was able to get her out. Meanwhile, everyone just believes the cops until they arrest someone else.
Daybreaq says
I first heard of this yesterday and my first thought was just extreme laziness and incompetence on the part of FHP. But thinking about this more, it feels like this may be a deliberate conspiracy to frame an innocent woman. But who is Montalvo that FHP wanted to protect so much? There was a comment on a YouTube video indicating someone who was close to one of the victims and made comments to the media against Lindsey Issacs was actually part of the cover up. I did not immediately put a lot of credence to it; it could be just a rumor. But looking at the information in this article again. Deno and Montalvo knew each other. They were traveling to and from the same place. They were BOTH going about 100 mph. There were a group of 8 to 12 motorcycles traveling WITH Deno and Montalvo. Neither Montalvo nor the group of other motorcyclists were referenced in the initial investigation. So, if they were in a GROUP, they all had to be going about the same speed … around 100 mph. Racing, showing off … maybe all the motorcyclists in this group are legally responsible for this accident so they ALL had a motive to keep Montalvo from being caught. So … who in this group of currently unnamed motorcyclists has connections to the FHP? This is beginning to feel like Florida’s Karen Reed!
Martin says
This case isn’t just botched—it’s a disgrace, and someone needs to own it. There was obviously time to do a real investigation before slapping cuffs on anyone. Nobody bothered. A person’s life got wrecked because the people responsible couldn’t be troubled to do their actual job.
And spare me the “my superior told me to.” That excuse doesn’t fly in the military—follow an unlawful order and you’re still on the hook—so it sure as hell shouldn’t fly here. Every officer, every supervisor, and the DA’s office that rubber-stamped this all made a choice. Those choices have names attached, and those names should be answering for it.
A real justice system doesn’t get to shrug, mumble an apology, and move on. The people harmed by a false arrest deserve to see consequences land on the ones who caused it. And the DA’s office should be furious—they staked their credibility on garbage work, and they should be demanding a hell of a lot better from the people feeding them cases. A mess this sloppy should never have made it through the door.
Protect and serve is supposed to mean something. Cases like this are exactly why so many people have stopped believing it does.