The Palm Coast woman arrested last month in connection to a fatal hit-and-run crash on I4 has been cleared. A new suspect, this one a Deltona resident, has since been arrested in Volusia County.
23-year-old Lindsey Isaacs of Palm Coast spent 13 days in jail, accused of causing a car accident that killed three people and leaving the scene. The accident occurred on October 4 on I-4 in Volusia County. Among the three people killed were Flagler County Deputy Administrator Jorge Salinas and his wife Nancy.
“I was extremely confused,” Isaacs said in a press conference about her arrest and release on Friday. “I kept telling them they had the wrong person, the wrong vehicle.” With her name cleared, Isaacs will have her Dodge Durango and her passport returned to her by prosecutors.
It appears the cause for Isaacs’ wrongful arrest was an incorrect conclusion based on conflicting witness accounts. One driver who saw the crash described a black Dodge Durango as the vehicle responsible, similar to Isaacs’ vehicle. Another witness recalled the Durango as being maroon, and said that they saw it driving erratically.
This second witness was able to recall the first half of the license plate from the vehicle which allegedly caused the accident. They told law enforcement it was ‘458’. This doesn’t match Isaacs’ license plate number of RJVN10, but it does fit the plate of the new suspect. 47-year-old Alisa Montalvo of Deltona has a plate which reads 4589XQ.
In their investigation of the crash, Florida Highway Patrol did not include the testimony of the witness who recalled a maroon Durango and part of its plate. They did include the testimony of the witness whose statement fit more closely with Isaacs’ vehicle. Isaacs’ attorney Patrick McGeehan was sharply critical of FHP’s handling of the investigation last week.
On Friday, the State Attorney’s Office announced it was dropping the eight criminal charges originally levied against Lindsey Isaacs. She was arrested on April 17 on three counts each of vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a deadly crash, plus one each of leaving the scene of a crash involving serious bodily injury and reckless driving causing serious bodily injury. Isaacs was released on April 29.
Those exact eight charges have now been brought against Alisa Montalvo, plus one more charge of evidence tampering. She was booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail on Friday without bond. It’s believed that Montalvo knew the third victim in the crash, a motorcyclist with whom she was said to be traveling in her vehicle.
“I feel like a new woman, I feel free,” Isaacs said in a video released by McGeehan taken at the courthouse. She’s now able to begin the process of moving on from an unfortunate fumble of investigative work that landed her in jail for almost two weeks of her life.
