An SUV driven by 24-year-old Kevin Abdiel Santiago from Allentown drove through a stop sign and hit Heller\u2019s vehicle, according to state police. Santiago is charged with burglary and 15 counts each of receiving stolen property and prohibited possession of a firearm.<\/p>\n
The crash remains under investigation.<\/p>\n
Dave Ortiz Alvarado knew Heller for more than 25 years when she moved to his Allentown neighborhood where \u201ceverybody knew everybody\u201d near the intersection of 13th and Union streetsin 2010.<\/p>\n
Although she left the neighborhood to move to Slatington years ago, Heller remained a close friend.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TMC-L-KandiHeller-0725-01-1.jpeg\")
An undated photo of Kandi Heller, who was killed in a crash Wednesday in Allentown. She is remembered by her friends for being a fun-loving person. (Courtesy of Cynthia Bilal)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unbelievable what happened to my friend,\u201d Alvarado said. \u201cShe was a nice person, a good mother, a great person, a good neighbor. She would do anything for anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
She leaves behind two sons, ages 11 and 21, who have special needs, Alvarado said. Heller owned a cleaning business called \u201cQueen Klean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrea \u201cFoxy\u201d Rachelle, who owns the Allentown nightlife event business Foxy Entertainment, said she became close friends with Heller around two years ago via a Facebook group for Capricorn Zodiac sign enthusiasts.<\/p>\n
Rachelle, Heller, and another mutual friend, Cynthia \u201cZa\u201d Bilal, became fast friends who frequented Allentown\u2019s nightlife and events scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cKandi was the life of the party. Once Kandi found out I had an entertainment company out here, she was involved in every event,\u201d Rachelle said. \u201cShe was supposed to be at my pool party on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kandi was the friend who \u201cnever stopped dancing,\u201d loved going to live music events and \u201calways had a smile on her face,\u201d Rachelle added.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of the bars she goes to, none of the clubs, nothing is going to be the same without her,\u201d she said. \u201cShe just was a very, very happy, outgoing soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bilal said she and Heller bonded over being single moms.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was fun to be around, she was just a great person,\u201d Bilal said.<\/p>\n
Javier Guerrero, a manager at West End Lounge and Grill, where Heller was a regular, is organizing a balloon release memorial for Heller at 10 p.m. Friday at the bar.<\/p>\n
Heller came to the West End Lounge nearly every Friday and Saturday, Guerrero recalled, and he said he will miss seeing her liven up the mood every time she walked through the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a down to earth person, a people person. She liked to make people laugh, smile, dance, she loved to dance, she loved the Spanish community as well,\u201d Guerrero said. \u201cIt was so heartbreaking to hear what happened to her, and I wanted to do this for her, for her family. It\u2019s so sad at such a young age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another memorial for Heller is planned for July 31 at one of Heller\u2019s favorite clubs, Catch 22 on Hamilton Street.<\/p>\n
DJ Menace, the club\u2019s main DJ, who also plays dance mixes at several other area clubs, said he saw Heller earlier this month on Catch 22\u2019s dance floor. Heller loved music, especially reggae, he said. One of her favorite songs was \u201cRich Girl\u201d by Louchie Lou & Michie One.<\/p>\n
\u201cKandi was just a happy, bubbly person. She was a jokester,\u201d the DJ said. \u201cShe followed me to all the clubs and she was always having fun, just being Kandi. Everybody is just really sad about what happened to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reporter Laurie Mason Schroeder contributed to this story.<\/p>\n
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friends of Kandi Jo Heller, the Slatington woman killed in a car crash Wednesday in Allentown, remembered her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,433,182,139,28,432],"class_list":["post-251526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}