Inset: Sunshine Perez (Broward County Jail). Background: The smashed front end of a Honda Civic after Perez crashed into it on the Turnpike in Miramar, Fla. (WTVJ).
A Florida woman has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for a deadly wrong-way DUI crash that killed a young paramedic on Florida’s Turnpike.
Sunshine Perez, 46, pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide in connection with the death of 23-year-old Ezekiel Urrutia. On Friday, a judge handed down the two-decade prison term.
The fatal crash happened shortly before 2 a.m. on Jan. 9, 2025, along Florida’s Turnpike in Miramar. Investigators said Perez was driving her SUV southbound in the northbound lanes for at least two miles before smashing head-on into Urrutia’s Honda Civic.
Urrutia was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. Authorities said Perez’s blood-alcohol level was nearly double the legal limit. Officers also reported that her eyes were bloodshot and that she smelled of alcohol. Toxicology results showed THC, methamphetamine and oxycodone in her system as well.
Perez, however, disputed the findings in the toxicology report.
“I was working, and when I got off of work, I went to one of my friends’ house, I had a drink, and I said my back was hurting, and I took what I thought was medication,” she said, according to a courtroom report from local NBC affiliate WTVJ. “Then I later found out in a toxicology report that there were things in my system that I do not do.”
During an emotional statement in court, Perez sobbed as she apologized to Urrutia’s family and made a brief joke about her first name.
“Again, I struggle with knowing that my two hands caused so much trouble to a family. I mean, come on with a name like Sunshine, you expect that to be a happy, bubbly person which I typically am, but now it’s like a rain cloud over this family and anyone who knew him,” Perez said, per CBS affiliate WFOR.
Urrutia’s family said he was set to be hired as a paramedic for the City of Miami at the time of his death.
“In a single moment, Sunshine Perez put an end to everything,” his father Frank Urrutia told the court. “Absolutely no words can describe when two Florida Highway Patrol detectives came to our front door.”
The victim’s mother, Tiffany Urrutia, spoke about all the milestones she will miss with her son.
“I was supposed to watch my child grow up,” she said. “I was supposed to hold his children and spoil them and watch the life that he worked hard to build. Instead, I watched the news and his body in a bag next to his car.”
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