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“Driving drunk … I’ll be dead thanks to you”: Prophetic texts reveal minutes before fatal Miami car crash
In the days leading up to the deadly crash, Mila Dago sent text messages typical of any 22-year-old enjoying life in Miami.
She planned a day at the beach with her circle of pals, talked hair styles with a girlfriend and hoped to watch a meteor shower light up the night sky.
But Dago, newly released police records show, was also in the midst of a nasty breakup with her boyfriend. And as she and friends barhopped in Miami in the early hours of Aug. 14, 2013, she fired off a barrage of angry text messages that finally culminated in horrifyingly prophetic words:
“Driving drunk woo …” “Ill be dead thanks to you …” “Lata”
Dago did not die. But three minutes after sending the last message, Miami-Dade prosecutors say, Dago blew through a red light near downtown Miami, plowing her tiny rented Smart Car into a moving truck and killing her own passenger and friend, Irina Reinoso, 22.
Dago’s text messages, entered into evidence last week in the DUI manslaughter case against her, add a chilling twist to yet another Miami tragedy involving young people, booze and car crashes.
Her defense attorney, David Rothman, said: “Ms. Dago, who, with her family, prays every day for the young woman who passed and her family, believes it is disrespectful to the young woman’s family to publicly comment.”
Dago, now 24, has pleaded not guilty to DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide and two counts of DUI with damage to a person. No trial date has been set.
A civil lawsuit is still pending against Dago and Car2Go, the vehicle-sharing company from which she rented the Smart Car.
Dago and Reinoso had only been friends a couple of months.
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Dago’s speeding car T-boned Byrum’s Chevy pickup truck, knocking him unconscious. “The Smart Car is what saved me,” Byrum told the Miami Herald. “If it had been anything bigger, I would have been in trouble.”
Byrum wound up with nothing more than bumps and bruises. But Reinoso “showed no signs of life” — paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.
A Miami police officer smelled “ an odor of alcohol” coming from Dago. Blood tests later revealed she had a blood alcohol content level of .178 — more than double the legal limit — nearly two hours after the crash, according to police.