Jermeria Holycross was driving south on U.S. Highway 19 in Largo Saturday when a man in a Jeep Wrangler began following her.

Holycross later told police she thought the Jeep had hit her rear bumper, so she got out of her car to check the damage near the intersection with East Bay Drive. The driver of the Jeep, Holycross said, smiled and then quickly accelerated, hitting Holycross and dragging her along the driver’s side of her Volkswagen Jetta.

The driver of the Jeep, Boris Alexander Twillman, 57, fled the scene, according to arrest reports. Largo police arrested Twillman later that day on charges of attempted first-degree murder and leaving the scene of a crash with serious injury.

Holycross suffered a broken leg and a shattered pelvis, as well as cuts and scrapes. She was still at Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital in St. Petersburg Tuesday morning undergoing pelvic surgery, her aunt Misty Moore said.

This was the 24-year-old Clearwater woman’s second surgery. Surgeons had already put a rod in her leg Sunday, Moore said. The fracture was so severe that the bone was protruding through the skin, Moore said.

Moore said her niece suffered psychological trauma in addition to her physical injuries.

“I think what hits her the most is that he smiled and laughed at me while he hit me,” she said. “She is very traumatized and has that image in her mind.”

Twillman’s arrest records indicate that police found the Jeep Wrangler at his home, although he had left with his girlfriend in another vehicle at the time. The records list his address as Pinellas Park.

Twillman then called the Largo Police Department and spoke with a sergeant and “detailed on a recorded line that something happened” on southbound U.S. 19, though he said “he was not personally involved,” according to reports.

Twillman was being held Tuesday in the Pinellas County Jail without bail. Court records show that at the time of his arrest, Twillman was out on bail on several felony charges stemming from an April arrest in connection with an incident involving his mother and son at a Clearwater-area home.

According to arrest reports for that case, Twillman pushed his mother against a wall during an argument on March 19 and choked his son and struck him in the face with a Glock pistol, breaking his nose and fracturing an orbital bone.

Pinellas officers arrested Twillman on April 2 on charges of aggravated assault, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, battery on a person over 65, domestic battery by strangulation and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He was released from the Pinellas County Jail the next day after posting $40,000 bail, records show.

After the incident, a judge granted a motion for a risk protection order filed by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, ordering Twillman to surrender any firearms and ammunition he owned or had in his possession.

After Twillman’s arrest Saturday, a Pinellas judge granted a request from prosecutors to revoke his bail in the case.

Roger Futerman, an attorney representing Twillman in the March case, said Tuesday that he plans to represent him in the new case but declined to comment for this article.

Holycross wasn’t alone in the car Saturday. Her 15-year-old brother and her boyfriend’s two young children were also with her, Moore said. The brother subscribes to Moore’s cell phone plan, so she received a notification when the boy called 911.

Moore rushed to the scene from Port Richey. By then, paramedics had already taken Holycross to the hospital, but her brother and her boyfriend’s children were still there.

“The kids were extremely distraught,” Moore recalls. “Everyone was completely panicked.”

When Moore and other family members arrived at the hospital, Holycross was not yet in stable condition and was being treated for internal bleeding and other injuries, Moore said.

Moore said Holycross and other witnesses told police the Jeep driver was driving aggressively and cutting others off for several minutes before getting behind Holycross. Holycross said she got out of her Volkswagen and raised her hands to the Jeep driver to indicate she needed a minute to check the damage.

“He put it in reverse, looked at her, laughed and hit the gas,” Moore said.

Moore said Holycross was dragged alongside her car with such force that part of her body shattered the driver’s side window. Her brother got out of the car screaming as he chased the Jeep down the road, Moore said. She said another driver who witnessed the incident followed the Jeep, which helped police find it.

Moore said Holycross was convinced Twillman struck her intentionally, and that it was not an accident that occurred in his haste to leave the scene.

“It was a complete massacre of a human being on the side of the road,” Moore said.

Holycross had planned to start classes to become a pharmacy technician on Wednesday, but those plans are now postponed. Moore has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for her niece’s medical bills and other expenses.

Moore said the family was grateful they didn’t have to raise money for a funeral and that when people asked Holycross how she was doing, she simply replied, “I’m alive. I’m here.”

“We’re grateful she’s here, the Lord has already blessed us with this part,” said another aunt, Candy Holycross-Jones. “Now we need justice.”

Times reporter Chris Tisch contributed to this report.