The victim of an armed carjacking says she lives in fear after she was carjacked at knifepoint in Hialeah.
It happened on July 29 at around 6:42 p.m. at the Victoria gas station at 385 E Hialeah Drive. The suspect, 19-year-old José Carlos Martínez Hernández, was in court on Friday. He was ordered held without bond.
Marianela Ojeda says she left work and stopped at a gas station on Hialeah Drive when a man threatened her with a knife and forced her to get out of her vehicle.
“I left work and I went to pump gas… after I pumped gas and was sitting in the car and was going to close my door, he said, ‘No, don't close. What you have to do is get down,’ and he put a knife to me here,” Ojeda said, motioning to her neck.
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She said she remembers how she trembled. The carjacker forced her out, and let her take her purse and phone before taking the car, but she said she was too frozen to even call 911.
"When I saw he was going to cut me... I thought, ‘Let him take the car before I lose my life,'” Ojeda said.
He fled north, even driving against traffic, the victim said.
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Two hours later, authorities found the car in a West Palm Beach intersection. They said the knife used to threaten the victim was inside.
Days later, she got her vehicle back, but she showed NBC6 the damages left over, including scratches on her car and what she believes is marijuana and tobacco residue.
But the emotional harm is worse.
“The fear I have is terrible. Wherever I go, you see that I’m scared,” she said.
