MIAMI (WSVN) - Police have arrested a man accused of striking and killing a 16-year-old girl, who had been reported missing, in a hit-and-run on the 79th Street Causeway in Miami.
City of Miami Police announced the arrest of 60-year-old Jose Fimia, Friday night.
Fimia faces charges of vehicular homicide/failure to stop, leaving the scene of a crash with a death, driving with a suspended license and tampering with physical evidence.
Diani Gomez Sanchez, 16, was reported missing on May 15 after, family members said, she went for a morning jog but never returned. Her body was found on May 16 alongside the 79th Street Causeway.
Police believe Gomez Sanchez was jogging along the causeway on the sidewalk when a gray car went off the road, hit her and kept going.
Days later, police located a car of interest less than a mile from where the 16-year-old’s body was found.
According to the police report, “there were several strands of treated hair (blue hair dye) that were embedded in the windshield and on the passenger side mirror housing that are consistent with the victim’s hair color.”
On Friday, the 16-year-old’s loved ones gathered in Miami to pay respects at her funeral when they received word of an arrest.
“It makes me feel much better that they finally have somebody,” cousin Christine Gomez said. “I don’t know for sure if that’s the person, but it makes me feel better that that person is not out there doing it to anybody else.”
Gomez also elaborated on how the 16-year-old’s death has affected her family.
“It’s been very hard. For me, I haven’t slept at all,” she said. “For us, it’s been very hard. For her mother, it’s been very worse. She was a very nice person. She was like a sister to me. She was always close to everybody.”
Fimia is jailed at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in West Miami-Dade, and he is being held without bond. He is expected to make his first appearance in court on Saturday.
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