MIAMI – Detectives arrested a 33-year-old man on Wednesday morning accused of killing a 76-year-old great-grandmother in Miami.
Rodrick Davis was speeding in a white 2019 GMC Terrain on Monday morning in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood, according to police.
Davis was driving northbound on Northwest Seventh Avenue, when he struck Koritza Ortiz, who was crossing from east to west, near 60 Street, police said.
“I am just relieved that justice can be served for my mother,” Ortiz’s son Daniel Garcia Ortiz said while at a funeral home on Wednesday, adding, “It’s just a shame it had to end like this where they had to go find him and he didn’t turn himself in of his own free will.”
A witness, surveillance video, and Real-Time Crime Center footage helped detectives find the GMC Terrian with frontal damage and arrest Davis at his home, according to a police arrest report.
“What he did was heartless,” Ortiz’s daughter Arliette Melara said. “How can you hit someone and just drive away?”
Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office correctional deputies booked Davis shortly before 11:30 a.m., on Wednesday at the Turner Guilford Correctional Center. He faced a charge of leaving the scene of a crash causing death.
Garcia had a message for Davis: “I’m sure you have a mother, maybe a grandmother, and I just want you to know how much you hurt our family.”
Local 10 News Assignment Editor Mercedes Cevallos contributed to this report.