- April 26, 2024
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A woman bound for New York hijacked a tow truck and headed north on Wednesday, but she didn’t make it far.
Angela Estrella stole the truck near Ormond Beach and, despite speeding away with it, was arrested shortly afterward at a gas station in Palm Coast, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
“I thought she was playing,” a man told deputies after he watched her drive away in his tow truck.
Estrella already had pending charges against her after she led law enforcement on a high-speed chase in August 2012. She sped through stop lights and reached speeds greater than 100 miles per hour while her two children sat in the back seat, begging her to stop, according to reports.
Estrella crashed into three vehicles before she was detained. Investigators said she was trying to kill herself and her two children.
On Wednesday, Estrella was driving a rental car on I-95 when it broke down near mile marker 275.
When a tow truck arrived on scene, Estrella asked the driver if he could take her in his yellow, flatbed tow truck to New York. The driver said that was too far, so she asked if she could take his truck.
“Sure,” he said, thinking she was joking.
“Really?” Estrella asked.
The driver told her no before using his cell phone to call the rental car company that owned the vehicle. When he turned his back for a moment, Estrella got into the truck and sped away, nearly side-swiping a semi truck in the process.
But the tow truck was equipped with a GPS tracking system, and a Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy soon found Estrella buying diesel fuel at a gas station in Palm Coast. Volusia County deputies responded and detained Estrella.
She was booked into the Volusia County jail, where she remains in custody.
