Driver is arrested in Coral Gables hit-and-run that injured two women, police say
Police arrested a man this week they say was the driver of a car involved in a hit-and-run that sent two women to a hospital with serious injuries in May.
The women were walking on the Granada Golf Course along the 1500 block of North Greenway Drive around 6:20 a.m. on May 21 when the driver of a black Mercedes 350 SUV veered off the road and hit them. Coral Gables Fire Rescue took them to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital to be treated for fractured bones and traumatic brain injuries.
Police say 32-year-old Wilbert Cabrera-Valdes, of Hialeah, was driving west before heading into the left lane into oncoming traffic then going off the road onto the golf course, according to his arrest report.
He drove off after hitting the women, police say. Witnesses gave police the car’s license-plate information and a description of the driver and a female passenger, according to the report.
Police found out that the owner of the car gave it to his adult daughter so she could use it for work after he asked her to move out, the report states.
That woman called her father on May 22 on a cellphone belonging to Cabrera-Valdes, police say. In June, detectives obtained a warrant for the phone’s records, which showed Cabrera-Valdes was in the area at the time the women were hit, according to the report.
Sunny Isles police located the Mercedes in a parking lot Wednesday, and it had damage consistent with the May hit-and-run, the report states.
Coral Gables and Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office detectives arrested Cabrera-Valdes on Thursday at a Little Caesar’s Pizza on Flagler Street in Miami. According to the report, he was carrying a glass pipe and had two rocks of cocaine hidden in his sock.
As of Friday, Cabrera-Valdes is being held at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on felony charges of leaving the scene of a crash that resulted in serious bodily injury and cocaine possession. He is also facing a misdemeanor drug-paraphernalia charge.
A judge had not set his bond on the felonies, and information on his legal representation was not immediately available.
This story was originally published September 19, 2025 at 5:12 PM.
