FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A family is searching for answers after the death of a 29-year-old woman in Fort Lauderdale. Video shows Essence Landers jumping on the hood of a car as it was moving and then falling off.
The incident occurred around 2 a.m. Tuesday in the 400 block of Southeast 32nd Street.
Landers and the driver, with whom she had a prior argument, were acquainted.
According to police, the man attempted to leave the hotel in his vehicle, but Landers jumped on the hood of the SUV and fell off as the vehicle was in motion.
“I can’t even say, but I know she didn’t know that was going to happen to her,” Landers’ cousin, Letizia Robbins, said. “She wasn’t thinking that.”
Police said she was critically injured and the man stopped his car and called 911.
Landers was then transported by Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue medics to Broward Health Medical Center, where she died, authorities said.
“I am going to be her voice because she confided in me with a lot of things,” Robbins said. “She wasn’t just my little cousin; she was like my little sister.”
Robbins said she believes, after watching video of the incident, that the man “deliberately ran her over.”
“So he has to pay. He has to go to jail,” she said. “It shows it clear as day. He ran her over. It wasn’t an accident that we thought it was.”
She added, “I don’t know him personally, so I can’t say (who he was). But it was somebody she was dealing with.”
Robbins said the man was a romantic partner.
No charges have been filed in the case, but Landers’ family is now left with questions and pain and feeling they are living a nightmare.
“I’m just thinking it’s all a bad dream,” Robbins said. “It’s not real.”
Fort Lauderdale police said their investigating into the matter is ongoing.
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