FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The trial continued Wednesday for a Treasure Coast woman charged in the hit-and-run death of a young girl who was getting on her school bus in 2021.
It was a brief but very emotional appearance in court for Marilu Gonzales, who took the stand and was asked about the worst day in her life.
Choking back tears and her voice barely rising above a whisper, she told a St. Lucie County jury, through an interpreter, she can barely get out of her mind what happened one September morning in 2021.
Her 10-year-old daughter Yaceny Berenice Rodriguez-Gonzales was crossing the street to get on her bus when she was hit by a vehicle along Oleander Avenue in Fort Pierce.
She always told Yeseny to wait until the red lights of the bus were on before crossing the street.
Gonzales said she saw a bright light ahead, and a loud noise, and the next thing she saw was her daughter rolling around on the ground, falling at her feet.
Gonzales also was asked by prosecutors to identify articles of clothing, and Yeseny’s backpack that were collected at the scene.
The woman behind the wheel of the car who struck Yeseny, Arianna Colon, faces charges of leaving the scene of an accident involving death, and vehicular homicide.
