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Kyle Hill was already on probation after he was arrested last year for allegedly beating up a man he thought was talking to his then-girlfriend.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A man is facing murder charges after he chased after the wrong car, hit it and sent it crashing into a pole, according to the St. Petersburg Police Department.
The pole collapsed and killed the woman in the passenger seat. The woman’s boyfriend, who was driving the car, was critically hurt.
It started just before 8 p.m. Sunday when 33-year-old Kyle Hill got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend. She left in a friend’s car, but St. Pete police say Hill got into his Nissan SUV to go find her.
He was driving south along 34th Street near 30th Avenue North when he saw a Honda that was the same make and model as the car his ex-girlfirend had gotten into. Police say Hill assumed she was inside that car.
Hill then called his ex-girlfriend and threatened her before “aggressively” chasing and harassing the people in the Honda for several blocks, according to the police department.
“While he was chasing the car, he called her again and said, ‘I got you. I’m going to kill you, your friend and myself,'” Police Chief Anthony Holloway said at a press conference Wednesday.
Officers said that eventually, Hill forced the Honda off the road, causing it to strike a concrete pole that fell and crushed the car. Hill’s car, meanwhile, hit a tree in the median as his blood alcohol was more than twice the legal limit, authorities said.
Arislenni Blanco-Medina, the 28-year-old in the passenger seat of the Honda, was on the phone with her father and 9-year-old daughter in Cuba at the time, according to police. They heard her final moments and screams as the car she was in was chased by the accused drunk driver.
Arislenni’s boyfriend, Norbelis Figueredo-Campos, was driving the car and suffered serious injuries. Police say the innocent couple had been on their way to Walmart when Hill chased them down.
“[Hill] used his car as a weapon,” Holloway said. “This is a senseless killing of an individual.”
According to police, Blanco-Medina had arrived in the U.S. just a few months ago from Cuba and was ready to start a new life and work to bring her daughter and family to the States.
Authorities say Hill has been booked into the Pinellas County Jail, where he faces DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, DUI/causing serious bodily injury, first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder.
