MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A family from Fresno, California held a vigil Wednesday for a woman who was dumped in an alleyway in northwest Miami-Dade a year ago before being fatally shot.
“I don’t know why she had to leave the world like this, because it just seems like it shouldn’t have happened to her like this,” Wendy Daniel’s aunt, Crystal Joyce, said.
Daniel’s loved ones visited the site where she took her last breaths Wednesday, leaving flowers and candles behind.
“She was so sweet -- she was so sweet, so sweet,” Joyce said. “She loved style, clothing -- she went to school, she always had a job, she did in-home care.”
Daniel’s alleged killer remains behind bars.
Ron Adam Donaldson, who was 43 when Miami-Dade police arrested him soon after the Aug. 2, 2022, shooting, is charged with second-degree murder.
He is also charged with armed sexual battery in connection to a separate case from June 15, 2022.
According to authorities, Donaldson and Daniel, 25, arrived to the area of Northwest 26th Avenue and 95th Street in Donaldson’s gray sedan.
The area is known for prostitution activity, police said.
According to his arrest report, surveillance video shows Donaldson, who appeared to be nude, exiting the car from the passenger side, grabbing the partially nude victim as she tried to stand up and shooting her once in the head.
Police tracked him down at his Miami Beach apartment less than 24 hours later.
Donaldson worked as an insurance agent and unit supervisor for Bankers Life in its North Miami office and had no apparent criminal history before his arrest last year.
He was later fired from his job.
In August 2022, a police source said investigators believe he may be involved in at least five rapes in Miami-Dade County. Police confirmed at the time that they were working with other agencies to see if Donaldson was connected to other crimes.
“We have to be left with this, we have to live past this. I can’t live past this. I don’t know what to do,” Joyce said.
Daniel’s family said they are thankful for the detectives who investigated the case.
“I love the lead detective on this case,” Joyce said. “He’s kept in touch with me. I call him day and night and he answers the phone.”
On Wednesday, a pastor and community activist Tangela Sears joined the family at the scene of the crime.
“I’m here to support her,” Sears said. “To be the voice for her own daughter.”