Hit-and-run driver says she ‘feared for her life,’ witnesses tell a different story

A Tennessee woman charged in the weekend hit and run in Doral is now facing two additional charges, as witnesses refute her account of why she hit two people and drove away Saturday night.

Danlesha Hall is now charged with two counts of aggravated battery, accused of running over a woman and dragging a man with her rental car, after hitting the church transport van they were driving.

”I still have that image in my mind. Horrible!,” said Maybelin Gutierrez, who was driving with her family on the way to dinner when the scene unfolded in front of them on 87th Avenue near NW 36th Street.

Hall initially rear-ended the couple’s van, and as traffic stopped at the red light, Gutierrez watched the couple get out of the van to talk to the woman who had hit them.

”She was screaming, ‘Stop’! I’m screaming ‘Stop!’ I see her reverse and go forward and I was screaming, ‘No, no, this is not happening in front of us!,’” said Gutierrez. “She runs over the lady.”

Then the family watched Hall take off, dragging the van’s driver.

”He looked like a rag doll, his body is tumbling in the air. It was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen,” said Gutierrez.

Her accounts don’t align with Hall’s who told police that she was in fear for her safety when the couple she hit got out of the van to confront her.

”She looked oblivious to everything, cool and collected. She didn’t look panicked.”

Gutierrez has given her version to the police.

Miami-Dade prosecutors have video of the incident from various angles from the close circuit traffic cameras at the intersection.

Police say they traced and located Hall when officers found the white Ford Fusion rental car in the parking lot of a Hyatt Place.

Hall and a friend had traveled to South Florida from Tennessee for cosmetic surgery.

Hall is now in the Miami-Dade County jail until she can post bond of $15,000.

The couple from Miami Gardens survived. They have broken bones and other injuries, but they are expected to be OK.

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