Two Florida men have been arrested in connection with the death of a woman who was thrown from a speeding truck earlier this week.
Daytona Beach Police said they were looking for Julio Angel Rivera in connection with a stolen motorcycle and contacted the victim, who provided information and called Rivera to the area. While officers were waiting for him, they saw the victim get into a white GMC truck, and when officers approached the truck, it sped away.
The victim was thrown from the moving vehicle, police said, although they weren’t clear if someone inside the vehicle physically threw her out or if the vehicle’s movements threw her out. A witness told WESH she saw the woman with the back door open screaming for help as the truck sped by her house.
“She had the back door open, and she said, ‘Help! help!’” Barbara Smith said. “I said, ‘Jump! jump!’ and then they kept going, and he sped up faster because the police were right behind him. She was screaming all the way down.”
Police said the woman was thrown from the vehicle in the 600 block of Madison Avenue. An officer stopped to render aid while the second officer continued after the truck, which eventually got away. The victim was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The truck was later found abandoned.
Rivera, 45, was eventually located and charged with grand theft auto. His charges were later upgraded to second degree murder and fleeing and eluding police. Rivera, who was in the truck when the victim was thrown from it, ingested a subtance before he was taken into custody and is currently hospitalized.
On Wednesday, police arrested the owner and driver of the GMC truck, Michael Doudney, 36, and charged him with fleeing and eluding. A second person, Jeremy First, 46, was arrested at the same location on an unrelated warrant from Orange County.
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[Featured image: Julio Angel Rivera/Daytona Beach Police Department]
