‘It’s a big loss for us.’ Family mourns Haitian immigrant killed in truck crash
Rodrigue Junior Dor never imagined that his first chance to see his father outside a violence-plagued Haiti and in his temporary home in the United States would be at his funeral.
But this is the heartbreaking reality the college student is now facing after his dad, Rodrigue Dor, was killed in a fatal semi-truck crash on Florida’s Turnpike in August that drew national headlines.
“I don’t have a father,” said Dor Jr., 22, who last saw his father four years ago when he visited Haiti. “Everybody has a father,” Dor Jr. said from his aunt’s North Miami-Dade home.
Dor Jr., and his mom, Myrlande St. Fleur, arrived in Miami on Wednesday after a 10-hour flight from Switzerland, where they live, to attend Dor senior’s funeral scheduled for Saturday.
The 54-year-old Haitian immigrant was killed along with his two friends, Herby Dufresne, 30, the driver, and Faniola Joseph, 37, another passenger, when semi-truck driver Harjinder Singh, 28, made a sudden illegal U-turn on the Turnpike about 19 miles north of Fort Pierce in St. Lucie County, authorities say.
Singh’s truck blocked both lanes of the northbound Turnpike, leading the Chrysler Town & Country minivan the three friends were riding in to slam into the semi’s 18-wheeler trailer, crumpling underneath it.
READ MORE: Victims in Florida Turnpike crash were Haitian immigrants, headed to Indiana: friends
The crash ignited a firestorm over immigration after the Florida Highway Patrol revealed that Singh, a native of India with a commercial driver’s license from California, had illegally entered the United States in 2018 after crossing the Mexico border.
After the accident, Singh returned to California, where he was later arrested and extradited to St. Lucie County after FHP issued a warrant for his arrest. He now faces three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of manslaughter. He is being held without bond in the St. Lucie County Jail awaiting trial.
‘Cared about people’
Dor, a father of five, is the first of the three victims to be buried.
“Rodrigue was a man who loved people, who liked being around peaceful surroundings and enjoyed being around people who were happy,” St. Fleur, 47, told the Miami Herald in an interview Wednesday. “He was very respectful and cared about people.”
Both she and her son said the news of Dor’s passing, and the video of the horrifying Turnpike crash, were shocking.
A community group, Sikhs for Justice, which held several vigils outside the St. Lucie County jail after the crash, had announced it had raised $100,000 for the victims’ families. Though the families say the amount is nothing, Dor’s family also said they have yet to receive any of the money promised.
READ MORE: Sikhs rally at St. Lucie jail to honor three who died in Turnpike truck crash
The entire ordeal, said Dor’s sister Guirlene Dorelus, has been painful.
Despite the national attention the incident received, the family has been left to scramble to find the money to pay for his burial on Saturday. Services start at 12:30 p.m. at the Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church, 14455 Memorial Hwy., near North Miami and will be followed by his interment at Vista Memorial Gardens in Miami Lakes.
The only support they said they’ve received has been from the Haitian Consulate in Miami, which has been trying to help them navigate the arrangements. The Consulate officials also helped the families claim the bodies from the morgue.
“It’s a very sad situation,” said Yverick Delerme Cyril, Haiti’s consul general for Miami. “They came here from Haiti looking for a better life only to die in a tragic accident. We are just trying to support the families as best we can.”
Cyril said the mother of one of the victims, Dufresne, suffered a stroke in Haiti after hearing of her son’s death. He was the only boy in a family of daughters.
Daughters couldn’t get visa to attend funeral
In addition to the money, the funeral also was delayed because the family had hoped to have Dor’s two young daughters, 12-year-old Nephtalie and 14-year-old Nehemie, who live in Haiti, attend the services to see their father one last time.
But efforts to secure U.S. travel visas through the embassy in Port-au-Prince were unsuccessful, Dorelus said. After making the request, the family was told they would need to apply through the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo in the neighboring Dominican Republic, she said, because “the embassy in Port-au-Prince is closed” for visa services.
Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic has been closed now for more than a year, and Haitians, even with proper documentation, sometimes run into problems.
“We don’t have a visa for them to go to the” Dominican Republic, Dorelus added. “That’s why…they cannot come.”
For Dorelus, 47, the sudden loss of her older brother is difficult to accept, especially when she considers that he fled gang violence and deepening instability in Haiti to make a temporary life for himself in the U.S.
“My brother [came] here looking for a better life,” she said, adding that he reluctantly moved to the United States because “in Haiti, he was working.”
“The insecurity in Haiti,” she said, is why he left and came to Miami.
Dor wasn’t just a big brother. He was like “my dad,” said his sister. “He was the man of the family.”
“It’s a big loss for us,” said Dorelus, breaking down in tears. “We lost a great man. Everybody is talking about him because he was a good person. He cared about people.”
“It’s a tragedy,” she added.
Dor came to the U.S. a year and a half ago through the two-year humanitarian parole program launched by former President Joe Biden for nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. After initially settling in Miami with Dorelus, he moved to Georgia to be closer to his mother. He had only been living in Indiana for two months when he was killed.
“He did not come to stay,” Dorelus said, noting her brother’s plans were always to return to Haiti.
‘We need justice’
Days before the accident, Dor called his sister to say he was headed to Miami with friends. When they arrived that Sunday, he texted her to say, “I’m here.”
Though Dor and Dufresne spent their last night at Dorelus’ apartment, she didn’t get to see them, she said, because she was working.
“I feel bad, real bad,” Dorelus said. “I keep thinking about him. It’s really hard for me.”
That morning, he texted her, “I’m leaving. When I arrive over there, I will let you know.”
The call never came. Instead, at 6 p.m. that day, police knocked on her door. Dor and Joseph died at the scene. Dufresne later died at the hospital.
Dorelus can’t help but wonder if things would have turned out differently had her brother, who worked for Haiti’s national water company, DINEPA, had been the one behind the wheel.
“I know my brother,” she said. “He’s a good driver.”
But it is not Dufresne, whom she met, she blames. It is Singh.
“He violated the law,” she said. “He wasn’t supposed to make a U-turn the way he did it.”
“We need justice. We ask for justice,” Dorelus said. “My brother [has] five kids and my mom; my brother always helped my mom, helped us. We need justice.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 1:03 PM.
