zirovsky

Sarah Root

Sarah Rae-Anne Root was born in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States to Scott Bernhardt and Michelle R. Wilson Root. Michelle is Jim Wilson and Sharon Wilson‘s daughter.

Sarah has a brother named Scott Root. He was 4 years older than her.

After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Buffs in 2012, she attended Bellevue University in Bellevue, Nebraska, USA while working full time at Walgreens. On May 1, 2015, she turned 21.

On January 30, 2016, she graduated summa cum laude from Bellevue University with a bachelor’s degree in investigations. After a graduation celebration on the evening of January 31, 2016, she was driving home when a truck driven by Eswin Mejia, then 19, crashed into her Oldsmobile Bravada sport utility vehicle in Omaha, Nebraska.

Mejia was street racing in his truck. His blood alcohol content was 0.241, which is three times the legal limit.

Sarah died from her injuries. Mejia was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide.

Eswin Meija, the Honduran criminal fugitive who killed 21-year-old Sarah Root of Omaha in a drunk driving crash, has been extradited to the U.S. after nine years on the run.

Thanks to our special agents, @TheJusticeDept, @USMarshalsHQ and the Honduran government for their… pic.twitter.com/AWGR9zFBAr

— U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@ICEgov) March 22, 2025

Eswin Mejia

Jeffery L. Marcuzzo earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1980, earned his Juris Doctor from the Creighton University School of Law in Omaha in 1983 and became an assistant city prosecutor in Omaha in 1987. In 2000, he assumed office as a judge of Nebraska’s fourth judicial district county court.

Omaha is around 1,357 miles away from Nogales, Arizona, USA. The latter is around 2,304 miles away from Washington,D.C.

In 2013, Mejia left Honduras and illegally entered the U.S. at the border in Nogales. He was classified as an unaccompanied minor and transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement in Washington, D.C.

In 2014, Mejia was sent to live with his brother in Omaha. Authorities did not release the name of the brother.

Bail for Mejia was set at $50,000 by Marcuzzo. The bond hearing for the judge lasted only 2 minutes and 25 seconds.

After a relative posted the cash fee, which was $5,000, Mejia was released. The Honduran man then fled the U.S. and disappeared for nine years.

On February 27, 2025, Mejia was arrested in Santa Barbara, Honduras. On March 20, 2025, he was extradited to the U.S.