Family of 12-year-old hit-and-run crash victim speaks

A mother is urging the community to come forward with information about a speeding driver who crashed and killed her 12-year-old while she walked near her grandmother’s home in the northeast valley.

Yelina Tarango was killed June 20 while walking to a store near Belmont Street and East Carey Avenue to buy a necklace for her friend’s birthday. North Las Vegas police said at the time that a 2005 Cadillac Escalade and a 2010 Chevrolet Camaro were racing in the area.

The Cadillac ran a stop sign and crashed into a pickup truck, police said, before the car continued, struck another vehicle and lost control, driving up on the sidewalk and hitting Yelina. The driver ran off, and Yelina died at the scene.

“No parent should have to pick out a coffin for their child,” Yelina’s mother, Veronica Carrillo said in an interview Tuesday. “No parent should be going through this over stupid decisions. They don’t know what they took from us. Seven weeks ago, I had a happy home, and it’s not happy anymore.”

Carrillo said she dropped Yelina off with the girl’s grandmother that day while she went to work.

Carrillo’s mother-in-law told her the girl was outside playing with neighbors and a cousin that afternoon. The cousin returned home and Yelina did not.

“Her grandma called me in panic, (saying) that she couldn’t find her,” Carrillo said. “I was confused. ‘What do you mean you cant find her? I just talked to her.’”

Carrillo drove to her mother-in-law’s house after work, frantically calling Yelina’s friends to help find her missing daughter.

She passed by the aftermath of the crash, seeing the Escalade and the Camaro, but she never assumed a pedestrian was involved. One of her two sons found an online news article posted about the crash while they were looking for Yelina, and it said a juvenile pedestrian had died.

“My heart told me it couldn’t be her,” Carrillo said. “I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want it to be. But I couldn’t find her still.”

Carrillo returned to the scene after a few hours, when a medical examiner from the Clark County coroner’s office showed her a necklace Yelina had worn and asked her to confirm that the girl lying on the sidewalk was her daughter.

“I fell to the floor,” Carrillo said through tears. “I remember my ears kind of just closed up and I can almost, I almost felt like my life flashed before my eyes. I remember telling myself, ‘I have to calm down, my boys are here.’ Now, I have to go home and tell her father that she’s gone.”

Alfredo Cabrera Jr., 19, was arrested after the crash and charged with reckless driving resulting in death. Police said in his arrest report that he was driving the Camaro, and the owner of the Cadillac had reported it stolen.

Carrillo said her daughter was an incoming seventh grader with aspirations to be a veterinarian. She loved animals and had a warm smile.

Detectives have told her there are no leads on who was driving the Cadillac.

Farhan Naqvi, who is representing the family, said he did not have plans to file a lawsuit yet, but anyone with information could contact his firm or North Las Vegas police.

“At the end of the day, the family deserves some semblance of closure and justice for Yelina,” Naqvi said Tuesday. “The community deserves for this person to be off our streets.”

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.