{"id":432444,"date":"2026-10-19T23:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/432444\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T23:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:08:10","slug":"florida-driver-crashed-into-tree-hid-in-closet-police-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/432444\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida driver crashed into tree, hid in closet, police say"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kendall<\/a>CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

A driver crashed into a tree on Southeast 23rd Place in Cape Coral early Saturday morning, narrowly missing parked cars, according to a homeowner. <\/p>\n

Kenneth Joseph said he was surprised to see the crash outside his home around 1 a.m. <\/p>\n

“I didn’t hear a thing,” Joseph said. “The doorbell rang, and the police came and asked if I had a video camera, and I told them no, and then they said, well, there’s an accident.”<\/p>\n

Joseph took photos of the scene after officers said the driver, Johnseph Aguilar, and a female passenger fled the Hyundai. Neighbors told Cape Coral police that Aguilar ran from the crash and tried to hide. <\/p>\n

Officers said they eventually found Aguilar inside a plastic storage closet in the backyard of a home on Southeast Fourth Street. <\/p>\n

“It was scary in the sense that the driver could have been hurt, too, because these tree trunks are very large,” Joseph said. “It was amazing he was able to get out and escape for certain.”<\/p>\n

Aguilar is facing charges of hit-and-run, trespassing, and resisting an officer. <\/p>\n

Joseph said he is relieved the damage wasn\u2019t worse. <\/p>\n

“As you can see from that, from the skid mark there, it probably had skidded out and from there, it would have done a lot of damage to that car. So the tree protected it,” Joseph said. <\/p>\n

Joseph added that the debris will be picked up during his normal trash collection.<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment, and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 A driver crashed into a tree on Southeast 23rd Place in Cape Coral early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[169485,169487,209,18824,211,210,2336,1776,2675,141687,104,169486,157028,28,7881,5154,320,11143,169480,169484,213,356,1224,87575,125373,132,9664,153890,169479,169481,169482,169483,15179,142489,4942,221],"class_list":["post-432444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-backyard-closet","tag-backyard-storage-closet","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-driver","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-car-crash","tag-crash","tag-driver","tag-early-saturday","tag-entertainment","tag-female-passenger","tag-fled-scene","tag-florida","tag-florida-driver","tag-hit-and-run","tag-home","tag-hyundai","tag-johnseph-aguilar","tag-kenneth-joseph","tag-late-news","tag-lee-county","tag-officer","tag-parked-car","tag-parked-cars","tag-police","tag-police-say","tag-resisting-officer","tag-se-23rd-place","tag-southeast-23rd-place","tag-southeast-fourth-street","tag-storage-closet","tag-tree","tag-tree-crash","tag-trespassing","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}