FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - Police have arrested a woman in connection to a 2019 hit-and-run in Fort Lauderdale that left a man dead.
Thirty-six-year-old Tarah Sol was taken into custody in Palm Beach over the weekend on a fraud charge, but she will be brought to the Broward County Jail to face charges for the hit-and-run that claimed the life of Jonathan Frederick.
It was the news the victim’s sister, Julienne Frederick, had been waiting two years to hear.
She spoke with 7News via Zoom, Monday afternoon.
“I’ve been praying for this every single day, because we deserve this, some sort of closure,” she said.
Julienne said a police officer called her during the weekend.
“The first words he said to me and my dad was, like, ‘We got her,'” she said.
Sol faces charges of failure to stop at an accident involving death and tampering with evidence.
“It was an accident, but it stopped being an accident when you left him there to die,” said Julienne.
Police said Jonathan was crossing Broward Boulevard at Northwest Seventh Avenue on Oct. 26, 2019, at around 3 a.m.
Investigators said Sol had been drinking and was heading towards Interstate 95 when she hit Jonathan and kept going.
A witness at the time described what he heard.
“Sounded like a car hit a car. I never thought it was a person getting hit,” he said.
Jonathan later died. The 35-year-old was an artist who helped take care of an elderly relative.
Not long after the crash, his sister held a memorial and begged the driver to come forward.
“We hold no hate in our heart, only nothing but love and forgiveness,” said a mourner.
No one came forward, and police only knew they were looking for a silver Hyundai Sonata.
But detectives never gave up, and in 2020, they received a tip accusing Sol of being the driver and claiming that she still had the car.
Investigators said they used her phone to ping her to the area on the night of the crash.
Now Jonathan’s family finally has justice.
“It still doesn’t bring back the hole in your heart. It still doesn’t bring back my brother,” said Julienne. “It was the only thing that’s never been taken away from me.”
Sol still has to be tried. Julienne said that is when she will tell the suspect about the brother that, police said, she killed.
“My words, I pray, will haunt her for the rest of her life, because that’s what she deserves,” she said. “You’re not a good person if you do that.”
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