9. MARIAH LOGAN
After spending three days in Miami with her friends for spring break in 2019,
23-year-old Mariah Logan decided to bid the city farewell by hanging out of the passenger
window and yelling “Bye, Miami!” on her way to the airport. But Logan never caught her plane
back to Chicago. She fell out the window and was fatally struck by a Range Rover.
The driver initially stopped, but fled the scene before police arrived,
sparking a homicide investigation. Meanwhile, the three gal pals who were in the car with Logan
called her boyfriend, Roy Olden, to give him the tragic news. It was clear when he spoke
with the Miami Herald that he was broken by his girlfriend’s unexpected death. He said that the
couple had the next five years of their future planned out when Logan’s life was cut short.
The young woman’s travel companions were equally distraught and reportedly threw themselves onto
the pavement in disbelief as investigators combed the highway for the driver of the Range Rover
that hit and killed Logan. There are no leads and the suspect is currently still at large.
8. BRITTANEE DREXEL
In 2009, 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel left her home in Rochester, New York for a spring break
trip in South Carolina without telling her mom. Dawn Drexel had already told her daughter that
she couldn’t travel with her friends to Myrtle Beach, but the teen went anyway.
A few days into the vacation, Brittanee left the hotel her group was staying at to visit a friend
about a mile-and-a-half (2.4 km) away. Surveillance footage would later show that she
entered a resort and left a little while later. Shortly after that, Brittanee stopped texting
her boyfriend, John Grieco. He grew concerned and called her friends to check on her. They didn’t
know where she was, so Grieco called Brittanee’s mom, Dawn, and she got the authorities involved.
Police determined that the young woman’s cell phone last pinged in the early morning
after her disappearance between 50 and 60 miles (80-97 km) south of Myrtle Beach
before the device abruptly went dead. They interviewed a nightclub promoter
but were unable to classify him as a suspect or rule him out.
Dawn moved to the area so that she could actively search for Brittanee, whom she
suspected had fallen victim to human trafficking. The FBI, on the other hand, concluded that she was
probably murdered and offered a $25,000 reward for information solving the case. Two jailhouse
informants claimed that they saw her being abused at the home of a man named Timothy Taylor.
They claimed that Taylor had initially tried selling Brittanee to traffickers,
but decided to kill her when her missing persons case gained widespread attention.
He was never charged, despite failing a polygraph test. Last year, Taylor’s mother told the press
that she wants people to stop associating her son’s name with Brittanee’s disappearance,
arguing that there’s no compelling evidence against him in the case.
7. A DRUG-INDUCED DEBACLE
Earlier this year, six cadets from the prestigious West Point military academy
ended up in the hospital from drug overdoses while spending their spring break in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. Police and emergency responders rushed to the group’s vacation rental
after receiving a call about six people who had ingested cocaine laced with fentanyl,
a powerful painkiller between 50 and 100 times stronger than heroin.
When officers arrived at the scene, there were multiple people in cardiac arrest,
including at least two who needed CPR and at least one who was in critical condition,
according to Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Stephen Gollan, who spoke with Local10 News.
First responders administered Narcan to reverse the deadly drug’s effects. Two of the emergency
workers also got sick from exposure to the fentanyl and required medical treatment.
The cadets were taken to the hospital,
and a West Point Spokesperson told CNN that the academy was investigating the incident.
Local authorities used the disturbing event as an opportunity to remind spring breakers of the
dangers associated with fentanyl and to caution the public against mixing drugs and alcohol.
Police arrested 21-year-old Axel Giovany Casseus,
the alleged drug dealer who’s accused of selling the deadly cocaine to the West Point cadets
and several others who overdosed during spring break this year.
6. AIDEN NEVAREZ
Like many other college students, 18-year-old Arizona State University
freshman Aiden Nevarez traveled to Mexico for spring break this year.
He went to Cabo with some classmates, where they stayed at the Hotel Riu Santa Fe.
Just hours after checking in, Nevarez accidentally fell off a wall and plummeted to his death.
The 20-foot (6.1 meters) wall looked deceptively short, according to ASU student Jake Reithinger,
who was at the hotel when Aiden died. Speaking with local news station Arizona’s Family,
Reithinger explained that from a certain angle, the wall only appeared to be about knee-high,
and the tops of palm trees that can be seen next to it look more like bushes or shrubs. In
other words, Nevarez had no idea how tall the wall was or the risks he was taking near it.
The teen’s death was ruled an accident.
It’s unclear whether he had drugs or alcohol in his system when he fell.
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5. DORIAN TAYLOR & EVOIRE COLLIER
A 24-year-old Pennsylvania woman named Christine Englehardt was partying in Miami during spring
break last year when she accidentally overdosed on the deadly drug fentanyl.
It happened after she met two men from North Carolina named
Dorian Taylor and Evoire Collier and went back to their South Beach hotel room with them.
Englehardt was pronounced dead after being found unresponsive in her hotel room.
Just days later, a 21-year-old tourist from Chicago named Walter Riley
died from an overdose after obtaining drugs from the same two men who had provided them
to Christine. Riley was found unconscious in the street and was soon pronounced dead.
A grand jury quickly indicted Taylor and Collier on a slew of charges, including first degree
murder, burglary, and sexual battery. The pair are accused of killing Englehardt and Riley
by giving them deadly opioids, they also allegedly raped Christine while she was incapacitated
and then stole her credit cards, which they used to buy liquor.
The accused are maintaining their innocence. Collier’s lawyer, Phil Reizenstein,
reportedly told the Miami Herald that according to the medical examiner’s report, Christine had
so many drugs in her system when she died that it was difficult to discern exactly what killed her.
But according to the arrest report, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner determined
that a green pill the men had given Christine contained a so-called “rapidly fatal” dose
of fentanyl. The autopsy also revealed that the young woman’s blood alcohol level was nearly three
times the legal limit when she died, and that asphyxia may have played a role in her death.
4. HEATHER MILLER
Unlike many college students, 21-year-old Heather Miller decided against participating in rowdy
spring break festivities during her senior year at West Virginia University in 2008. She was invited
on a trip to Texas with her girlfriends, but instead, she returned to her hometown of Wheeling
with plans to spend time with her family and play video games with her two brothers and her sister.
One night during her visit, Heather went out with some friends with plans to stay overnight
at one of their homes. In the early morning hours, someone rang her parents’ doorbell.
At first, they thought Heather had changed her mind and came home.
But the couple were met by two deputies, who delivered some unexpected bad news:
their daughter had been in a car accident and was rushed to the hospital.
On their way to the emergency room, Heather’s parents passed the scene of the crash.
During a 2015 interview with Weelunk.com, her mother, Jody, said that this was the
precise moment when she just knew that her daughter had not survived. The young woman
had been a passenger in a vehicle driven by her 22-year-old friend, Justin Kearns,
who walked away with minor injuries. Heather, on the other hand,
died from her injuries. Her mom and dad received the news after arriving at the hospital
and being put into a separate waiting room by themselves, which they took as another bad sign.
The unfortunate tragedy proves that things can go terribly awry at any place and at any time,
including when someone makes the seemingly safe and smart choice to stay close to home
during spring break. Investigators suspected that alcohol played a role in the crash,
prompting Jody to become a citizen volunteer who works at DUI checkpoints.
3. CALIFORNIA CRASH
In 2018, three Las Vegas teens named A.J. Rossi, Dylan Mack, and Brooke Hawley traveled to southern
California for spring break. The three were driving around at one in the morning with
another friend when their car was suddenly rear-ended on the Pacific Coast Highway.
They were pushed into an intersection and their car burst into flames.
The unnamed passenger managed to escape, but the other three were trapped in the blaze.
Unfortunately, it was too late for police to save their lives, and they perished at the scene.
Police arrested 27-year-old Bani Duarte, who was driving the vehicle that fatally struck
the Toyota that the teens were traveling in. Huntington Beach resident Alex Martinez told
the Orange County Register that he and his friends noticed Duarte driving erratically shortly before
the deadly crash. They were on their way home from the gym when they saw the woman swerving
and hitting curbs. The diligent civilians trailed Duarte’s vehicle while they called the police.
At one point, the friends caught up to the woman and asked if she was okay, pointing out that she
had just hit several sidewalks. She reportedly acted confused in response. But Duarte declined
their offer for a ride home and continued to drive, leading to the tragic deaths of the
innocent teens she rammed her car into. 2. DROWNING DISASTER
This year’s spring break season has been marked by numerous tragedies. One of the first to hit
headlines was the accidental drowning of a 22-year-old American woman in Cancun. Details
on the incident are scarce – according to media reports, the victim was pulled from the water,
where she had become caught in the tide. By the time she was rushed to the hospital, though,
it was too late to save her life, and she was declared dead.
The woman, whose identity was never disclosed, was reportedly with her boyfriend when she got swept
out to sea. It’s unknown whether there were any active “red flag” warnings against swimming in the
area of the water that she chose to enter. A “red flag” would have indicated that water conditions
were dangerous and represents an advisory against going swimming. When the heartbreaking
story made headlines, the woman’s cause of death had not yet been officially announced.
The tragedy happened just weeks after a Paraguayan tourist disappeared during a red flag warning.
At the time of publishing, his body had not yet been recovered,
but it was widely assumed that he drowned.
The Weather Channel recently published an article reminding spring breakers not to let
rip tides ruin their fun in the sun and advising vacationers on what to do if they find themselves
stuck in one. Knowing what to do in a situation like this can absolutely save someone, as some
tourists have unfortunately learned the hard way by seeing someone they care about lose their life.
1. MIAMI MAYHEM
Miami is known for being a party city year-round, but things escalated to a whole new level recently
when the city declared a state of emergency after five spring breakers were shot over the course of
just two days. This year’s spring break saw an influx of overwhelming crowds in Miami Beach.
Vacationers flooded the streets and violence erupted. Police became exhausted trying to
control the chaos as they scrambled to rescue one shooting victim after another. Four officers were
also injured amid the craziness. The cops were left feeling exhausted, according to a
Facebook post by the Miami Beach Fraternal Order of Police urging local officials to take action.
After a weekend of mayhem, City Manager Alina Hudak announced that a curfew was being imposed
starting on Thursday of that week and lasting until the following Monday.
Starting just after midnight every night, people were expected to go inside. And anyone hoping for
lax enforcement was in for a disappointment – Hudak made it clear that police would be
patrolling South Beach to make sure that spring breakers were abiding by the rule.
But the curfew was mostly ignored, and hundreds of vacationers were arrested
as the revelry and crime continued. In addition to the shootings,
suspects were charged with a slew of other crimes, including sexual battery, theft, fraud, and more.
It soon became clear that not everyone who got in trouble was on spring break, but that the
college crowds had become mixed with party-hardy adults who eagerly contributed to the problems.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather spend your entire spring break inside
while all your friends are out having fun or go camping and have a ton of fun
until you caught a horrible case of poison ivy? Let us know in the comments below
and be sure to subscribe before you go! See you next time, bye! :)