Search continues for man missing since Easter
On Easter Sunday, part-time towtruck driver Valentino Malloggi rode bikes with three of his children, had Easter supper with them at his boss’ Lauderhill home and then vanished, leaving his kids alone in his RV home parked at a Davie truck stop, friends and police say.
“This isn’t in his character,” said Christina Malloggi on Thursday. She and Malloggi, 38, are married but separated and have eight children. The kids who visited him Sunday are ages 16, 10 and 3, their mother said. “He wouldn’t take off and just leave the kids,” Malloggi said. “When I spoke with him Sunday night, he was perfectly fine.”
Davie police say Malloggi was last seen about 9 p.m. at the Florida 595 Truck Stop, 2705 Burris Road, where he lives. The truck stop is just south of Interstate 595 between Florida’s Turnpike and State Road 7.
Officers and bloodhounds searched the area Tuesday; on Wednesday afternoon, three officers with the agency’s mounted unit rode through a field looking for him. The horses were used in a terrain that is difficult to walk through, Sgt. Mark Leone said.
Malloggi works shifts for Interstate Towing in Davie, sometimes doing errands or as a mechanic, sometimes driving a tow truck and responding to calls.
After Easter dinner, he drove one of Interstate’s tow trucks to a parking lot at 3501 Burris Road, about amile fromhis RV. A puzzling clue: Malloggi is a chainsmoker, and he left his cigarettes in the truck, police say.
On Monday, Malloggi was supposed to have washed the truck, changed the oil and, if needed, driven a towshift, said his boss, Tee Lawrence.
But Sunday night, cameras from a business on Oakes Road recorded Malloggi walking east toward State Road 7, and police are checking Broward County videos to see whether he boarded a bus, Capt. Dale Engle said.
As the week dragged on without news for Malloggi’s loved ones, their concerns were growing.
“I can’t see him just walking away,” said Lawrence, a driver and manager for the towing company.
He said he’s known Malloggi for two decades and that he was responsible and would never walk away fromthe truck and leave the keys in the ignition.
“Everything in the truck was in its place,” Lawrence said. “If anything happened, it happened outside. I’m really worried now. Even when he wasn’t working, he’d check in every day.
“I can’t see him leaving his kids. He loved them to
Davie police say Malloggi was last seen about 9 p.m. at the Florida 595 Truck Stop, 2705 Burris Road, where he lives.
death. That’s why it’s so strange. It’s just not adding up.”
Lawrence called Malloggi “very talented. Whatever you put in front of him, he can accomplish. He is very skilled with tools.”
Christina Malloggi said, “He is a really hard worker, has 17 or 18 years in the tow industry. Just about everyone in the industry knows him. He didn’t have any known enemies.”
Their children are very upset, Malloggi said.
“They want to know where their dad is,” she said.
Davie police ask anyone with information to call Detective Paul Williams at 954-693-8303.