Family of woman slain in 2019 Florida Keys crash blames Tesla autopilot for her death
The family of a young woman killed in the Florida Keys in 2019 when a Tesla ran a stop sign and plowed into a parked SUV she was standing next to on the other side of the road is arguing in a federal lawsuit that flaws with the electric car manufacturer’s Autopilot system were to blame for her death.
But as trial nears, Tesla attorneys counter that the driver, who was eventually charged with careless driving, had his foot on the accelerator and overrode the self-driving system when he blew through the intersection at nearly 70 mph. The driver, George McGee, 48, told police that night that he was picking up his cell phone that he dropped and didn’t realize he was approaching the intersection.
“The evidence clearly shows that this crash had nothing to do with Tesla’s Autopilot technology,” the car company said in a statement to the Miami Herald. “Instead, like so many unfortunate accidents since cell phones were invented, this was caused by a distracted driver.”
McGee pleaded no contest to the charge, and a Monroe County judge withheld adjudication in January 2020 and fined him $1,000, plus $100 for court costs, per court records.
“To his credit, he took responsibility for his actions because he was searching for his dropped cell phone while also pressing the accelerator, speeding and overriding the car’s system at the time of the crash,” the Tesla statement continued. “In 2019 when this occurred, no crash avoidance technology existed that could have prevented this tragic accident.”
READ MORE: Was a Tesla on autopilot when it killed a pedestrian in the Keys? FHP is checking
Jury selection for the wrongful death lawsuit began Monday at the federal courthouse in Downtown Miami.
Was Tesla on ‘cruise control?’
The crash happened around 9:15 p.m. April 25, 2019 in a remote section of rural highway that connects Card Sound Road to County Road 905. The route is a more roundabout, less-traveled way to get in and out of the Florida Keys. Traveling south down County Road 905 leads you to Key Largo.
Heading north is the only way to get to the Ocean Reef Club, an exclusive gated community where McGee was en route tor from Boca Raton that night.
As McGee was approaching the three-way stop sign intersection that separates the two roads in his 2019 Tesla Model S, Naibel Benavides Leon, 22, was standing with her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, now 33, beside his parked Chevy Tahoe in a lot on the east shoulder of County Road 905, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
When McGee drove through the intersection, he plowed into the Tahoe, causing it to spin, hitting Benavides Leon and launching her more than 80 feet into the woods, FHP troopers said at the time.
McGee got out of his car and immediately tended to Angulo, body camera footage shows from a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy, who was the first on scene. At this time, no one there, including McGee, realized somebody else was injured.
It would be about 10 minutes before Benavides Leon’s body was found in the woods.
The body camera footage reveals that the deputy suspected there was another person affected when a witness at the scene began yelling about a pair of woman’s flipflops underneath the Tahoe.
As the deputy looks around the truck, McGee can be heard on the footage saying, “Please tell me no,” as he approaches the deputy, who told him to “get back.”
Almost two minutes later, the woman can be heard saying, “She’s right there. She’s right there in the bushes.”
When the deputy arrived to where Benavides Leon was lying, a firefighter crouching beside her body said she’s not breathing.
McGee told the deputy the car was on “cruise control” when he dropped his phone. He was on his way to Ocean Reef to pick up his wife because they had to fly out of town for a funeral. He was on the phone with an airline at the time, he said.
“And, when I popped up, I saw a black truck,” McGee said. “It happened so fast.”
Troopers investigating the crash said there was no indication or evidence that McGee had consumed any alcohol that night.
Angulo is also part of the lawsuit against Tesla. His attorneys say he suffered permanent injuries and mental health challenges from the crash and the loss of Benavides Leon.
His attorneys and those of Benavides Leon’s family argue that at the time of the crash, Tesla marketed the Autopilot feature in a way that allowed drivers to believe it was fully autonomous. The system was then in “Beta” phase, meaning it was not tested for safety and not designed to be engaged when on roads with cross traffic or intersections, the attorneys say in the lawsuit.
“Tesla allowed it to be used on roads Tesla knew were not suitable for its use, and knew this would result in collisions causing injuries and deaths of innocent people who did not choose to be part of Tesla’s experiment,” the lawyers wrote.
This story was originally published July 14, 2025 at 7:41 PM.
