Dillon Angulo could see a long future ahead with his girlfriend, Naibel Benavides Leon.
"I just felt like she was she was the one," Angulo said.
In 2019, the young couple was making their way home in South Florida after a day spent fishing.
They parked at the end of a road in Key Largo and were standing outside their SUV when a 2019 Tesla Model S raced toward them, past a stop sign and flashing red light and crashed into their vehicle at over 60 miles an hour.
"I don't remember it happening," Angulo said. "I just remember waking up in the hospital wanting to know what happened to me and asking why."
Police body-worn camera footage captured the scene at the crash site.
Angulo was on his back, unresponsive.
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The force of the impact threw Benavides Leon so deep into the woods that rescuers did not realize she was there until a bystander pointed out a pair of ladies' flipflops by the SUV.
Benavides Leon was pronounced dead at the crash site. She was just 22 years old.
The Florida Highway Patrol said careless driving led to the collision, blaming the driver for speeding, failure to stop at a stop sign and being distracted.
But there was something else.
Records from the highway patrol noted that the Tesla had been operating in Autosteer mode, part of the car's driver assistance system known as Autopilot.
"I was driving, I dropped my phone and looked down and I ran a stop sign and hit the guy's car," the driver is heard telling a police officer.
The federal government has been investigating Autopilot in Tesla vehicles, including the technology on board the Model S in the crash.
Todd Poses and Adam Boumel represent Angulo in a lawsuit against Tesla.
"These accidents happen over and over and over again," Poses said. "People aren't using this technology correctly. They're not trained and they don't understand it."
Their lawsuit claims that when it comes to Autopilot, Tesla "greatly exaggerated its capabilities and hid its deficiencies," and that "Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, made the intentional decision to continue encouraging Tesla drivers to over-rely on its autopilot system."
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Tesla denies those allegations and did not respond to questions from Scripps News.
In 2023, however, the company agreed to recall more than 2 million vehicles equipped with Autosteer, including the Model S in the Florida crash. It was a response to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, known as NHTSA, saying Autopilot may have been a factor in hundreds of crashes, 29 of them fatal.
Now, NHTSA is investigating whether the recall was enough to ensure Autopilot is safe.
It is one of eight investigations Scripps News identified at NHTSA listed as "open" that involve vehicles built by Tesla, a company whose CEO Elon Musk is a close adviser to President Donald Trump. The Trump administration is now in charge of NHTSA.
In 2023, Tesla disclosed that the U.S. Department of Justice, then under President Joe Biden, was also investigating Tesla Autopilot.
Poses and Boumel say the future of these investigations is now in doubt.
Their lawsuit says Tesla Autopilot "continues to present a risk … of serious injuries to drivers of Tesla vehicles and the public," another claim Tesla denies.
"He's putting people's lives at risk," Boumel said, "not only the people who buy the vehicles but the people that are maybe looking at stars on the side of the road. It puts everyone at risk without any safety net."
Both Musk and Trump have pushed back on any claims that Musk will be involved in government work that benefits him, even as Trump has showcased Tesla vehicles on the south lawn of the White House. His FBI began investigating attacks on Tesla cars and property as domestic terrorism.
At the same time, NHTSA has overseen three recalls of Tesla vehicles since Trump took office, including a recall of more than 46,000 Cybertrucks.
In a statement to Scripps News, an NHTSA spokesman said the agency "is committed to working expeditiously through all open investigations."
Scripps News correspondent Charles Benson pressed Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy about how independent those investigations will be.
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"One hundred percent," Duffy said. "Our investigations are not going to have any impact from any outside forces coming into play. Elon Musk is not the secretary. President Trump gave me the nomination. I'm running the department."
Tesla says its Autopilot features make cars safer on the road and "are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment."
The Angulo lawsuit against the company points to a 2016 video, still on Tesla's website, that tells a different story.
"The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons," the start of the video says. "He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." The driver's hands aren't on the wheel.
Florida Highway Patrol documents say NHTSA had inquired about the crash that left Angulo with a brain bleed, spinal fractures and a broken jaw.
"It is very important the investigations continue and conclude," Angulo said. "This car was not safe and destroyed our lives. We all need to do what we have to do to hold Elon Musk and Tesla accountable."
Angulo's case is set to go to trial this summer.
Neither NHTSA nor the Justice Department would answer questions about the status of their reported investigations of Tesla self-driving features.
