A road rage victim in Florida says her attacker “smiled and laughed” as he hit the gas and ran her down with his Jeep, breaking her leg, rib, and pelvis and causing serious internal bleeding. Jermeria Holycross is now hospitalized and lucky to be alive, her family said.
“I think the biggest thing that sticks out to her, that she just keeps saying, is he just smiled and laughed at me as he hit me. She is very traumatized and just has this image in her head,” her aunt Misty Moore told the Tampa Bay Times.
Florida resident Boris Twillman, 57, was no stranger to police. At the time of the road rage attack on Aug. 10, he was already out on bond for a multitude of charges, including felony assault, battery of a senior, and domestic battery by strangulation that were reportedly connected to his own mother and son, reported the outlet.
Shortly after he allegedly ran down Holycross in Largo, Florida, Twillman brazenly called the Largo Police Department to report that “something happened” on U.S. 19 but claimed that “he was not personally involved in a crash.” He was quickly arrested for attempted murder and leaving the scene of a crash involving serious injury. He is being held in the Pinellas County Jail on two bonds totaling nearly $1 million.
On Aug. 10, Holycross, 24, was driving on U.S. 19 near East Bay Drive with her younger brother and her boyfriend’s two toddlers in the car when she noticed a Jeep aggressively tailgating her, according to local news outlet WTVT.
Before she could move out of the way, the Jeep suddenly accelerated and rear-ended the bumper of her Volkswagen Jetta, she told authorities. Traffic was stopped, and Holycross took the opportunity to hop out of the car to inspect the damages, her mother, Tammy Holycross, told local news outlets. But the minute she stepped outside of her car, Twillman hit the gas, striking her and pinning her between the two cars. He then dragged her along the driver’s side, according to an arrest report obtained by Law & Crime.
“When he hit the car, she got out because traffic was stopped, and she wanted to look at the damages,” recounted Tammy. “Well, as she looks, he proceeded to look at her, smile and laugh, and hit the gas and run her over in front of my son and her boyfriend’s two children.”
Adding even more trauma to an already disturbing situation, Tammy noted that the children saw her face hit the glass of the vehicle.
“They were screaming, and they were saying that baby girl just got killed. Her face hit the glass and then the kids saw that, and it started pouring out blood. So that definitely was a bad scene for anybody to have to see,” she said. In addition to many broken bones, Holycross suffered internal bleeding, severe lacerations across her face, skin burns, and missing toenails.
The attack was witnessed by several bystanders who jumped in to help, and one unsuccessfully chased after Twillman, said a GoFundMe created to help Holycross with medical bills. The police arrested him later that day, issuing a statement that the suspect “exhibited extremely dangerous and reckless behavior.”
“This type of behavior cannot and will not be tolerated on the roads of in the City of Largo,” the Largo Police Department said in a statement.
