New suspect charged after wrongful arrest in deadly Flagler County crash

Expert: 'How in the world can this big of a mistake be made?'

Lindsay Issacs spent nearly two weeks in jail after being wrongfully arrested in connection to a deadly crash that happened months earlier. She has since been released from jail and the charges filed against her have been dropped. And a new person has been arrested and charged. However, the damage has been done, Isaacs told FOX 35, alongside her attorneys.  Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer has one question: "How in the world could this big of a mistake be made?"

ORLANDO, Fla. - A woman wrongfully arrested in a deadly Flagler County hit-and-run crash has now had her charges dropped after investigators identified a new suspect. 

Prosecutors say 46-year-old Alisa Lee Montalvo was driving the Dodge Durango involved in the October crash that killed three people.

What happened?

The backstory:

According to a report from the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), a Dodge Durango changed lanes and struck another vehicle, which caused a chain reaction crash that included a motorcycle and another vehicle.

The motorcycle rider and two people in the fourth car died at the scene of the crash, while the Durango fled the scene, according to FHP.

Among the crash victims were Flagler County Deputy Administrator Jorge Salinas and his wife, Nancy Salinas.

Charges dropped

The crash happened in October. Lindsey Isaacs was arrested in April in connection with that crash. But it turns out FHP troopers had it wrong and arrested the wrong person.

The State Attorney's Office in Volusia County announced a new arrest and dropped the charges against Isaacs.

According to a statement from a spokesperson for the State Attorney, 46-year-old Alisa Lee Montalvo is the person who allegedly caused the deadly hit-and-run. She is charged with three counts of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident, and other charges, including tampering with physical evidence.

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The state says Isaacs was driving a black Durango, but it was actually a maroon Durango, similar to the one Montalvo was driving, that allegedly caused the crash.

In the arrest report, troopers said a license-plate reader camera captured Isaacs’ tag traveling near the crash.

"Part of our investigation used the principles of time-distance analysis. And in our investigation, we took that distance, the speed of travel, and we were able to determine that Ms. Isaacs was well past the accident scene when the accident occurred," said Patrick McGeehan, Issacs’ defense attorney.

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Issacs spent 13 days in jail for a crime she didn’t commit.

FOX 35 spoke with her after she was set free.

"I feel there's really no way of fixing what they did to me. It will always hurt me. My reputation was ruined, I'm still receiving death threats and hate. It's very hard. Time will heal, I hope," said Issacs’.

How could this happen?

Troopers claimed in the arrest report that they ‘observed what appears to be 'smudge or rub marks', but Isaacs’ attorney released these photos of Isaacs' car, which he says show no damage associated with the crash.

Former FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer spoke with FOX 35 about the wrongful arrest.

"This can come into confirmation bias. You look at a vehicle, maybe it had some dirt on it, maybe they had the wrong angle. For whatever reason, they saw marks that they thought they could justify as matching up to being involved in a crash. When in fact, that vehicle didn't have the marks, the vehicle wasn't the right color of the vehicle. And there was no way, time-wise," said Coffindaffer. "From the time that vehicle passed through the license plate reader, it could have ended up at the crash site."

Coffidaffer believes this could hurt the case too.

"You can imagine that it's going to be a field day for a defense attorney to say, ‘whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. You said it was this other person. You, in fact, incarcerated them for 13 days. I think you've got this mixed up again.’ It causes a lot of damage for justice ever being served in a case like this," she added.