There have been developments in two recent crime incidents related to West Boca. The deadly Deerfield DUI driver, a resident the Alister apartments on Boca Entrada, will be staying in the care of the Broward Sheriff’s corrections unit indefinitely.
The Mission Bay burglars have been identified with one now spending his time in the main detention center and the other being sought. He went to a high school in Boca west of the Turnpike. She’s from Broward. Media coverage of the incident, possibly our Facebook video, led to three tips pointing to these suspects. Full details below for paid subscribers
The young Mr. Vilela appeared in court a few days ago after being released from the hospital. The prosecutor moved to hold him in pretrial detention without bail and that motion was temporarily granted, with a final hearing on that issue to be held this morning in front of Judge Marina Garcia-Wood.
The motion is based solely on the accident, with no indication that Vilela poses a flight risk nor any other obvious reason to deny bond.
The court file contains arrest paperwork that has more information about how the accident happened and the extent of the injuries for all involved.
Vilela was driving westbound on Hillsboro in a BMW M5. The other car, a Tesla Model 3 driven by Sebastian Espinoza, was traveling eastbound and making a left turn to go north onto Country Club Boulevard.
Investigators determined that Vilela was driving approximately 95 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone when the BMW crashed into the Tesla. Both vehicles “suffered catastrophic damage.” Espinoza suffered minor injuries. His passenger, Thais Haug, was pronounced dead at the hospital.
One of Vilela’s passengers told investigators that Vilela had been drinking whiskey at a birthday party in Pompano Beach. He was drunk before they got into the car. Others tried to get Vilela to let someone else drive but he “resisted and got in the drivers seat.” He was driving unsafely and at excessive speed. All three passengers told him to slow down.
The front seat passenger suffered a broken left arm and broken right ankle. She required surgery. One backseat passenger suffered a collapsed lung. The other backseat passenger had “multiple brain bleeds” and required neurosurgery.
A hospital blood draw indicated that Vilela’s “legal” blood alcohol level was 0.118, well over the legal limit of 0.08.
BSO filed 23 charges against Vilela, including DUI causing death to a human. The arrest paperwork is below.
vilela-probcause-affThe bond amounts set for the non-homicide charges add up to over $120,000. If the judge does allow bail we expect that the total bond could be $250,000 or more.
He went to Olympic Heights. She is from Oakland Park. That can be a bad combination.
PBSO identifed the two burglars depicted in the surveillance video as Marcos Salas and Laura Holliday. Salas’ Facebook profile says he went to Olympic Heights High School. His LinkedIn profile indicates he worked at Vapor Corp., an e-cigarette company, but we don’t know how recent that was.
Salas has a reported address on White Pine Terrace in the Arborwood subdivision near Palmetto and Lyons. It’s a 10-minute drive from there to the burglarized home on Haydn in the Sonata subdivision of Mission Bay, but the arrest report indicates the taxi picked the pair up in Pompano Beach.
The investigation revealed that these two geniuses called the taxi from a 954 number belonging to Holliday. The taxicab number was easily visible in the surveillance video.
Investigators also were able to see specific tattoos on the female in the video that match tattoos on her Facebook profile. They are not referring to the bird and branch on this picture, though we see what looks like the edge of it in the video.
Instead police noted a unique tattoo on the inside of her right forearm and another on her right outer calf area.
After getting further information detectives obtained a search warrant for the home where Salas was living. He was arrested and became cooperative, leading them to places where they had stashed the victim’s jewelry. A substantial amount of jewelry was recovered thanks to PBSO efforts.
Salas told them a not particularly credible story. Holliday told him that the home belonged to a friend so it was okay to break in. It’s not clear why that would make it okay to steal the friend’s jewelry.
Salas has an extensive criminal history including multiple felony drug cases. Holliday has several cases under the name Laura Nestor in Broward. She has not been taken into custody yet as of this writing.
The Salas arrest paperwork is below.
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