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Fort Pierce woman confesses to hit-and-run crash that killed child, arrest report shows

Police: 'I hit a girl this morning and left the scene,' message from Arianna Aleja Colon, 22, says
Arianna Aleja Colon, 22.jpg
Posted at 4:01 PM, Oct 05, 2021
and last updated 2021-10-06 09:00:25-04

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A Fort Pierce woman accused of killing a 10-year-old girl in a violent hit-and-run crash last month confessed to her family, telling her mother that "you're not going to love me anymore," a newly released arrest report shows.

Arianna Aleja Colon, 22, is facing charges of vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a crash involving the death of a human. She's currently in the St. Lucie County Jail on $210,000 bond.

Police said Colon struck Yaceny Rodriguez-Gonzalez around 6:15 a.m. on Sept. 23 at Oleander Avenue and Skylark Drive, then took off.

Rodriguez-Gonzalez was crossing the street to get to her school bus — which was parked with its red flashing stop lights activated and stop bar out — when she was hit.

According to Colon's arrest report, surveillance video from a nearby business showed that Colon's white sedan "did not try to stop" before hitting the little girl. The vehicle "showed no signs of slowing" before the crash, a review of footage from a school bus camera determined.

"The sedan fled the scene and no brake lights were observed on camera to indicate the vehicle slowing down," the arrest report stated.

When an officer arrived at the scene, Rodriguez-Gonzalez's mother was "yelling and screaming" and the girl was lying in the grass with "major head trauma." She was taken to Lawnwood Regional Medical Center, where she later died from her injuries.

According to the arrest report, Colon called her mother in the hours following the crash and was hysterical.

"Mom you're not going to love me anymore or want to see me anymore. I think I hit someone this morning," Colon's mother told police of her daughter's comments.

Colon also called her sister with a similar confession, according to investigators. Both Colon's mother and sister convinced her to turn herself into authorities.

According to the arrest report, police interviewed a man who knows Colon through her job as a "stripper" at Sensations Cabaret in Stuart. He said he received the following text message from Colon after the crash:

"Don't hate me. But im goin to jail possibly prison. So before u see me on the news just know that I love you. And what I did was an accident."

Police said a forensic search of Colon's phone uncovered a series of WhatsApp messages between Colon and an unknown person. In one of those messages, Colon said the following:

"I hit a girl this morning and left the scene. And she ended up passin away (crying emoji) it was an accident. I didnt mean to i swear."

Police said Colon went to the St. Lucie County Jail around 4 p.m. on Sept. 23 to turn herself in and admitted "that she was the driver" of the car that hit and killed Rodriguez-Gonzalez.

Colon then told authorities they could find her vehicle at an apartment complex in Fort Pierce.

Police said the car's headlight cover was broken, the hood was dented, the windshield was smashed, and what appeared to be "brown human hair" was on the right-side bumper.

Despite showing up at the jail on the same day as the crash, Colon wasn't officially placed under arrest until Oct. 1, more than a week after the hit-and-run.