MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Sunshine Perez appeared to cast a scowl in her mugshot as she was booked into the Miami-Dade jail on a Broward arrest warrant, facing charges in connection with a deadly crash on Florida’s Turnpike in January.
But family members of the man troopers say she killed said they know he is “smiling” after her arrest Tuesday.
State troopers said Perez, 45, was driving the wrong way near the Red Road exit in the early morning hours of Jan. 9 when she crashed into Ezekiel “Zeke” Urrutia.
Troopers said the crash killed the 23-year-old aspiring firefighter.
The arrest warrant doesn’t provide additional details on what led authorities to charge Perez, but she faces several charges, including one count of vehicular homicide and two counts of DUI manslaughter.
“Zeke is smiling from heaven today,” the Urrutia family said in a statement to Local 10 News following her arrest.
Perez was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center pending extradition to Broward County.
Family members set up a scholarship in memory of Urrutia, which will be awarded annually to a fire cadet at Miami Dade College.