South Florida youth pastor Joel Isaias Leiniz, 38, was speeding at 104 mph in a 40 mph zone in West Palm Beach on the night of January 17 when his 2017 Audi Q7 collided with a concrete pole and burst into flames.
The crash killed his eight-year-old daughter, Zoe, while Leiniz and his other two daughters, Esperanza and Zoe, were hospitalized with injuries. Zoe had been taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where she passed away about an hour later. The tragic loss came nearly a year after the children’s mother passed away.
Officers arrested Leiniz this week, and he is now facing charges of driving under the influence manslaughter and vehicular homicide.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation into the crash on South Military Trail concluded that Leiniz was driving drunk.
Hospital blood tests showed Leiniz’s blood-alcohol level was 0.083, which is just above Florida’s legal limit of 0.08. Investigators later ran calculations based on the timing of the test and estimated that his blood-alcohol level was actually higher, somewhere between 0.097 and 0.104 when the crash took place.
Leiniz resigned from his position at New Covenant Church in Pompano Beach after his wife died and was working as a youth pastor at the church. The widower was relying on survivor benefits, donations, and help from his parents and sister to raise his two surviving daughters.
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“… the Leiniz family experienced a devastating car accident that forever changed their lives. As they continue to heal both physically and emotionally, they are also grieving the unimaginable loss of their beloved daughter, Zoë. There are no words that can fully capture the depth of this sorrow, yet we trust that God is near to them in this season of heartbreak,” the message on Zoe’s GoFundMe reads.
“In the days ahead, Joel will be focused on his own personal recovery, while also caring for and supporting the healing of his daughters, Izabel and Esperanza. Our hope is to come alongside the Leiniz family and help ease these burdens, creating space for them to mourn, heal, and lean on one another without added pressure.”
The pastor told investigators that he was returning from a church concert when the accident occurred. He was trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle.
Leiniz was on a family vacation in North Carolina when he found out about his arrest warrant. He reportedly made a trip back to Florida to turn himself in. During a court hearing on July 20, Circuit Judge Donald Hafele set his bail at $150,000.
His lawyer, Anthony Genova, is challenging the claims that Leiniz was drunk and driving at 104 mph. In a court filing, the attorney argued that hitting a concrete pole at 104 mph would have destroyed it, but the pole stayed standing. He also suggested that Leiniz’s high blood-alcohol level might have been caused by doctors using an alcohol wipe on his arm before drawing blood.
Berthrude, a close friend of Zoe’s mother Sasha, remembers the little girl as a kind-hearted individual who, despite her young age, cared deeply about the underprivileged.
“Last year I posted this picture of my girl, Zoë. She had $100 and decided to give it to several students in Haiti. After every trip I’d tell her about my work, and she came to really love Haiti and Haitians… This girl was very special to me… I got really close to Zoë. Our personalities really clicked, and we just always gravitated towards each other, always choosing to be on each others team. We shared a love for reading and learning and books and maps and winning.”
“…What makes this hurt even more is that last January, we lost her mom, Sasha, a dear friend of mine. It hasn’t even been a full year, and now we lost Zoë too,” she wrote on Instagram.
Disclaimer: Inquisitr could not independently confirm the facts of this incident and is reporting based on the information available.
