Woman who fled after fatal DUI crash in Hialeah arrested in Mexico 19 years later

Nearly 20 years ago, a 40-year-old mother of two and a sister of a Miami Police commander was killed in a Hialeah car crash by a woman who ran a flashing red light and had a blood-alcohol level over twice the legal driving limit, prosecutors say.

But before police could arrest her, the woman’s boyfriend, who worked in the Hialeah Police Department, tipped her off and she fled to Mexico, prosecutors noted.

Leydis Menendez Abdala, 52, who is Cuban, was extradited to Miami from Mexico on Friday by deputies in the U.S. Marshals Service and booked into the county jail on Saturday. She’s facing a vehicular homicide charge in the death of Gloria Marcia Hall. If convicted, Menendez Abdala could face up to 15 years behind bars. A judge denied her bond on Monday.

“She has been on the run for 19 years,” Miami Police Commander Joaquin Freire, Hall’s brother, told Judge Kelly Carroll in a Sunday hearing. “She basically was brought back by the U.S. Marshals on Friday night from Mexico, where she’s been hiding for 19 years.”

On her way to church

The crash happened on Aug. 12, 2006, at the intersection of West 68th Street and 16th Avenue in Hialeah. Menendez Abdala, 33 at the time, was driving north in a blue Toyota Solara when she failed to stop at a flashing red light, her arrest warrant says.

Hall was driving west and had the right of way when Menendez Abdala, who was driving north, slammed into her green Mazda pickup truck around 4:25 a.m. Hall was pronounced dead on the scene by Hialeah Fire Rescue. The warrant did not give Menendez Abdala’s speed.

The green pickup truck belonged to her brother, Freire, then a Miami police officer. Freire, now 51, said his sister had been on her way to church to meet other church members before boarding a bus to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tampa.

Freire had been working the night his sister was killed. As he neared the end of his overnight shift and was heading home, he passed by the scene of the crash. Tired, he thought nothing of it and went home.

Later that night, a Hialeah Police detective knocked on his door. He asked Freire if he knew Gloria Hall and told him his only sibling was gone. “I was just there,” Freire told the detective, who confirmed it was the same crash scene.

Blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit

The arrest warrant details what happened after the crash:

During the on-scene investigation, Sgt. Antonio Luis could not speak to Menendez Abdala due to her injuries, though he did smell alcohol coming from her breath. Menendez Abdala was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

While at the hospital, her blood was drawn after police obtained a search warrant to test her blood-alcohol levels.

On Sept. 9, about a month after the crash, the test results showed Menendez Abdala’s blood-alcohol level was 0.180 per 100 milliliters—twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent. She had been released from the hospital before the test results came back.

‘By the time that the Hialeah traffic homicide unit got the toxicology results, this defendant’s boyfriend had given her the heads up, and she fled the country,” prosecutor Laura Adams said during Menendez Abdala’s first court appearance on Sunday.

After law enforcement could not find Menendez Abdala, the Hialeah Police Department issued an arrest warrant for her on Sept. 20, 2006, charging her with DUI manslaughter.

Over the years, multiple law enforcement agencies—including the Hialeah Police Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service—tried to find her, to no avail.

For nearly two decades, tips surfaced claiming that Menendez Abdala had been spotted, but they came from all over—from Puerto Rico to Kentucky, Freire said.

At one point, federal officials consulted the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office to determine whether the case could still move forward after so much time. Prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence and dropped the case in February 2022.

A few months later, prosecutors reopened the case after a Hialeah Police traffic homicide investigator reviewed the original file and spoke with the lead investigator who first handled the crash. New evidence emerged, including confirmation from a witness who identified Menendez Abdala as the driver in the fatal crash and validation of toxicology results from the time of the crash, according to Menendez Abdala’s new arrest warrant.

Investigators determined there was still probable cause for the DUI manslaughter charge, and Circuit Court Judge Mavel Ruiz signed a new arrest warrant on Aug. 11, 2022.

On Saturday morning, after 19 long years, Freire finally received the call he’d been waiting for.

‘“You get two emotions out of it, one is excitement that they finally brought her back to the U.S to face justice, but on the other side now it brings back all the pain,” Freire told the Miami Herald.

Menendez Abdala had been located in Mexico and was extradited to the U.S, though she is a Cuban citizen. She is charged with vehicular homicide, according to court records, and is being represented by the Miami-Dade County Public Defender’s Office, which declined to comment.

Adams, the prosecutor, requested that Menendez Adams be held in custody. Court records show a judge denied her bond Monday and she has an immigration hold.

Loving mother, sister and daughter

For Gloria Hall’s family, “there are no words that can express the pain we have endured for the past 19 years,” Freire said in a statement to the Miami Herald on behalf of his family.

The statement says Hall was a mother, daughter and sister “who was taken from us due to the criminal and reckless actions of a person who has shown NO remorse.” Hall left behind two young daughters—Victoria, who was 14 at the time of her death, and Katherine, who was 10, her brother said. The single mother had been working part-time at the YWCA while finishing her degree in human development, with hopes of becoming a social worker.

After learning of her death, Washington State University awarded Hall a posthumous bachelor’s degree. She had been just one class short of completing it, according to her brother.

Learning about the crash was the “the worst day of my life,” Freire said in a video posted to the Miami Police Department Instagram account in 2023, asking for people to come forward with information on Menendez Abdalar’s whereabouts.

“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is sit my mom down and my dad ... and then her daughters, my nieces, and tell them, your mom died this morning in an accident,” Freire said.

“For 19 years, the Hall family has had to endure the devastating loss of a loving mother, sister, and daughter,” Hialeah Police Chief George Fuente said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them during this difficult time. While nothing can undo their pain, we hope this arrest brings them a measure of comfort, and the knowledge that our resolve to find those who evade justice never wavered.”

The family says Menendez Abdala chose to flee the country to avoid trial and has lived “freely while our family lived with heartbreak. With the help of others who aided in her escape, she remained a fugitive for 19 years.”

They are “elated” that justice is finally being pursued.

“While nothing can erase our pain, knowing that Gloria’s case has not been forgotten brings us strength and peace,” the statement reads.

Menendez Abdala has an arraignment hearing set for Sept. 22.

This story was originally published September 3, 2025 at 5:47 PM.