FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Police are searching for a driver who struck and killed a pedestrian from New Jersey this weekend in Fort Lauderdale while he was in town vacationing with family.
Miguel Soler stopped to take a photo with a "Welcome to Fort Lauderdale Beach" sign on Las Olas Boulevard near Southeast 25th Avenue and was run over by a car.
"I'm very saddened, because he's a young man, healthy, and that's not the right way to go," Soler's half-sister, Ana Maria Soler, said. "Especially when you find out his son was in the car and his son is in shock."
Ana Maria Soler said her brother's 13-year-old son and wife saw him get struck by a car about 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
"For a 13-year-old boy who has only known his mom and his dad and they're whole life, it’s just been the three of them. It must be very, very hard," she said.
Ana Maria Soler said her brother was visiting from New Jersey and had come to the U.S. from Cuba in 1991.
A short time after the crash, Fort Lauderdale police found the suspect vehicle in the 300 block of Tarpon Drive.
They are still searching for the driver.
"My only goal is to see whoever did it, own up to it," Ana Maria Soler said. "You go, you take yourself to the police station and you say you committed the crime."
She said that as a former nun she does forgive whoever killed her brother.
"I'm not here to judge anybody, but I am here to let them know I forgive them for taking a life. I forgive them for going out and running away," she said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS.