Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
911 tapes: Chaos before pursuit
Tense calls prior to police chase on I-95
A man out for a morning walk on the beach reacts with fear upon finding two unresponsive men, suspecting they’re dead. “I just can’t go closer. I’m sorry,” he tells a 911 dispatcher of the gruesome scene. “God, I hope I’m wrong.”
The driver of a Porsche is stunned as a Jeep rams into his car. “Oh my God! He just crushed my car!” he tells a dispatcher.
Recordings of the tense moments between these witnesses and 911 dispatchers were released Thursday, revealing more details of the events surrounding a double killing on Fort Lauderdale beach and the car crash nearby that led to a dramatic police chase.
Police said Daniel Santo Dovi, the 64-year-old man captured in Tuesday’s chase, is a person of interest in the double killing on the beach. After the chase, officers found weapons in the Jeep as well as clothes
that appeared to be freshly washed, police said.
The two slain men were found bloodied at Earl Lifshey Park and at least one appeared to a 911 caller as missing an arm, according to records.
“There’s a man here who looks as if he might be dead,” the caller told 911. “I hope I’m wrong. I hope he’s alive. … I don’t want to go too close because frankly, it’s kind of creeping me out.”
The dispatcher asked him to shout and see if the person moved. The caller got closer. “Look, there’s blood everywhere, I’m terribly sorry,” the man said.
He eventually realized another person near the dead man needed help, too. “Maybe they passed out, but boy, it sure doesn’t look like it.”
That same morning, Dovi had threatened to kill Michael Jones, the driver of the Porsche, during a heated beachside confrontation, the arrest report says.
Dovi cursed when Jones told him to leave his property, a grassy field in Fort Lauderdale that is about a mile from where the bodies were found, police said.
Jones, an attorney and developer who owns the empty lot, suspected Dovi had parked his white 2018 Jeep overnight there. “I said, ‘Does that Jeep belong to you?’” Jones recalled Thursday.
“It’s my property, and it’s not a campground,” Jones told him. “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to leave.”
Dovi pushed him, making him stumble and go down on one knee, according to a police report. Dovi threatened to kill Jones, the report said.
“He’s crazy. He’s out of his mind,” Jones told a 911 dispatcher. “He attacked me and pushed me.”
Jones, 53, had just closed on the property about six months ago, but he wasn’t going to argue with Dovi over who owned the land. “He said he owned it and he had this look in his eye that wasn’t a good look,” Jones said.
“I just decided to say, ‘You’re right, this is your property, it’s a bad joke on me’ and I walked away,” Jones said. “I got in my car, drove a couple doors down and called police.”
When he came back to his lot, he saw Dovi gathering his clothes off tree branches and putting them in his Jeep, which had a Pennsylvania license plate.
“I said, ‘Where are you going in such a hurry now?’ and ‘The police will be here soon and we’re going to figure out whose property this really is,’” Jones said.
During this time, a friend of Jones’ drove up in a golf cart. Dovi put the Jeep into reverse and struck the golf cart, police said.
Dovi then struck the Porsche, police said. “I heard the engine and just wham,” Jones said. “He just destroyed the side of my car. I was in it and had a hard time getting out because the door could barely open.”
An hour later, at 10 a.m., when police were at the scene surveying the damage and talking to the two witnesses, Dovi returned in the Jeep. “We yelled at the cop, ‘That’s him. That’s the Jeep,’ and the cop puts on his lights and siren and goes tearing off after him.”
The police chase was on. When Dovi was stuck in traffic at Oakland Park Boulevard and State Road A1A, the officer tried to get him out at gunpoint, but Dovi ignored him and made his way to Interstate 95.
A chase went on for miles with multiple Fort Lauderdale police officers in pursuit. During the chase, a state trooper clipped Dovi’s Jeep, causing the car to flip on its side on northbound I-95 near Hillsboro Blvd. Jones and his friend later drove to the scene of the rollover to identify the driver as their attacker.
Once there, Jones said he saw the butt of a gun, and said he was told by police they also found “some large hunting knives and some damp clothing with blood on them.”
Jones spent Thursday trying to get his Porsche back from police. It was impounded as evidence.
A man who identified himself as Dovi’s younger brother, Chris, attended Wednesday morning’s court hearing via remote video link, and he told Broward Judge Corey Amanda Cawthon that Daniel Dovi had a history of mental health issues.
Dovi, of Pennsylvania, faces eight charges stemming from Tuesday’s crashes and chase. They include aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, criminal mischief and fleeing and eluding police, records show. His bond was set at $97,000.
The two men who were killed have not yet been publicly identified by police, who said they have been unable to find family to notify them. Records obtained Thursday from the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office show Dovi was arrested in 1998 in Texas on a charge of animal cruelty. Additional details about the case weren’t available.
Dovi is being represented by the Public Defender’s Office, which said it had no comment Thursday. His family members reached in Pennsylvania declined to comment.