Violence marks last days of Hugo Selva
Gunman startled many in shooting spree that ended on I-95.
On Wednesday, Feb. 7, the calls to 911 started coming in just before 10 a.m.
“I’m on 95 northbound, just south of Belvedere Road and there’s some guy just driving backward,” the caller said. “I saw him really clearly. He looks like he was high on drugs, to be honest with you.”
Another caller said he was nearly hit by the wrong-way driver near the Forest Hill Boulevard exit.
“He was going faster than the traffic going northbound,” he
said. “I mean ridiculously fast. He could kill somebody.”
As dispatchers shared with each
other what was going on and connected it to a fatal shooting in Lake Worth minutes earlier, the calls continued to pour in.
Another caller said the small black Nissan Rogue SUV had just passed her.
“God, that’s not a survivable ... He was going about 100 mph or more,” she said. “I just hope that they can find him.”
After more than two dozen 911 calls, I-95 would sit at a standstill at the tail end of the morning rush hour as Hugo Selva, the driver and gunman, was shot dead inside the burning and smashed SUV. His girlfriend, Nicole Novak, was slumped in the passenger side with a gunshot wound to her head from Selva earlier that morning.
In the hours after the I-95 chaos, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office learned Selva was connected to three other shootings in the past 24 hours from West Palm Beach to Boca Raton, including one fatal.
Eight days before the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Hugo Steven Selva was the name that went from law-enforcement agency to law-enforcement agency in South Florida to see if his violent spree had hit their city.
Little is known about why the Park Vista High School graduate, who had been living in Brevard County with Novak for years, was back in town. But new documents released by the sheriff ’s office and West Palm Beach police in recent weeks shed more light into what happened in the last 24 hours of their lives. check-cashing business off Congress Avenue in Palm Springs on Jan. 30. Sheriff ’s deputies said they later discovered the Nissan Rogue they drove was rented from Enterprise Rent-A-Car the same afternoon.
But their first interaction with police was Feb. 4.
That Sunday afternoon, Selva’s grandmother, Mar- ilyn, called Delray Beach police. She said her grand- son and his girlfriend were asking for water and to take showers at her home. She left the property fearing for her safety, but said she believed they stole her furs, according to a police report. As she remained on the phone with police, Novak and Selva left. It’s unclear from records where they went after that or whether she ever saw them again.
The first shooting Coming home Sunday At 1:12 p.m. Tuesday,
Friends say and Facebook Charles Brown Jr. walked out posts show Selva and Novak from the Dutchman Motor had been together since at Lodge motel in West Palm least 2013. The two had a Beach to meet Selva on the baby girl together in 2017. adjacent Wilder Street. SecuAmbrosia Spivey, a friend rity-camera footage shows from Brevard County, said Brown walk up to the drivthe pair met after Novak was er-side window of the Nisout on work-release for one san Rogue, hand something of her criminal convictions to Selva and then walk back and lived at Novak’s grandto the motel near Forest mother’s home in Merritt Hill Boulevard and Dixie Island. Highway. As Brown turned
Novak had a long crim- around, Selva shot him once inal history ranging from in the back and drove off, burglary to drug possession according to West Palm over the years in north-cenBeach police records. Offi- tral Florida. Selva had litcers wrote in their report tle to no criminal history, that the shooting appeared but friends say he had been to be unprovoked. using drugs since he was 13 When officers arrived, years old, and police had there was a blood-drop- nearly arrested him for finan- let trail from the scene at cial exploitation and physiWilder Street through a hall- cal abuse against his grand- way of the motel, leading mother in Delray Beach, into the front parking lot records show. As recently where Brown was found on as December 2016, Selva the pavement. Officers noted threatened to kill her. he was wrapped in a black
It’s unclear when Selva blanket and a flamingo-patand Novak made their jour- terned towel was wrapped ney from the Space Coast to around his middle. Both had Palm Beach County or how blood on them. they got here. A receipt found “Who shot you, bro?” one in Novak’s pocket during officer asked as he walked up her autopsy showed she had to Brown lying on the pave- received $99 in cash from a ment. With orange and green University of Miami socks peeking out from under the blanket, Brown remained in a fetal position on the ground asking what he should do about his wound. He was transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center, where he was treated and released.
Witnesses told police they did not see the shooting but heard the shot fired.
Soon after the shooting, a call came into dispatchers from someone who said his name was Hugo Selva. The man explained he was the person who shot Brown.
“I did it,” the man on the line told the dispatcher. “I was just scared. I operated out of fear. I wasn’t show- ing love.”
He wanted to speak with a detective, but no one was available to speak at the time. The dispatcher asked him to drive to the police station and he said he would. Selva never showed up. When police attempted to call him later, his phone was off, records show.
Two shootings before dawn
Anthony Fonti arrived home in Boynton Beach about 1 a.m. Wednesday, and saw a Nissan parked in his driveway on Bentwater Circle. Selva and Novak were sleeping inside. Fonti told police he and Selva used to sell marijuana together but he hadn’t seen him in four years and didn’t know why he was there that night.
He banged on the car window and told the couple to leave. Selva woke up in the passenger side seat, yelled behind the closed window, then shot through the wind- shield, striking Fonti in the shoulder, police said.
Fonti ran inside the home to grab his AR-15. He returned to the driveway to see the couple had left. A friend drove Fonti to JFK Medical Center in Atlantis.
As police worked the scene for clues in Boynton Beach, Edvin Milkevic was found in a crashed Nissan 370Z on southbound I-95 at about 4 a.m. Boca Raton police said he was taken to Delray Medical Center, where he died from apparent gun- shot wounds.
Police have not said when or where Milkevic was shot or how they connected Selva to the shooting. When they first released information about the shooting, police said Milkevic had been driv- ing along West Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach before he headed south on I-95. On Feb 15, police confirmed with the sheriff ’s office that the bullet removed from Novak’s body matched the bullet that killed Milkevic.
It remains unclear how or where Selva and Milkevic came into contact with each other. Boca Raton police said this week that their investigation remains open.
The final hour
When Palm Beach County sheriff ’s deputies arrived at My Neighbor Market on the south end of Lake Worth that morning, all that was left at the scene was a pool of blood in a parking space.
Witnesses said a man shot a woman in the head about 9:30 a.m. The woman was Novak.
As bystanders tried to help her, the 22-year-old man’s small, pale frame stepped out of the rented Nissan and dragged his girlfriend’s life- less body into the vehicle before speeding away. One man told deputies when he went to check on the girl, Selva stepped over and said, “Don’t try it. I’ve got her,” then drove off.
Security-camera footage from that morning shows witnesses tried to stop Selva. They pulled on locked door handles, banged on the windows and chased after the speeding car.
“A guy shot the girl in front of my store,” a woman told a 911 dispatcher. “Right now she is dying.”
As the store clerk looked outside the Nissan was gone.
“Where did he go?” the dispatcher asked.
“I don’t know. I just locked my door because I’m so scared,” she replied.
The clerk later told investigators the couple had been inside the store less than half an hour earlier to buy cigarettes and they seemed fine. When they came back the second time, Novak got cash from the ATM.
Another man driving near the scene called 911 when he saw the speeding car on Dixie.
“I saw a guy take off and he’s going through a bunch of lights and I saw cops going the other way,” he told a dispatcher. He said the driver headed west on Sixth Street.
Where Selva was headed was unclear, but where he ended up was driving south- bound in northbound traffic on Interstate 95.
One woman told a 911 dispatcher there was a car speeding 100 mph in the opposite direction of traffic near Southern Boulevard. When asked if she could see him now, she said no.
“He’s probably already in Boynton,” she said.
Passing the Forest Hill exit, another woman called 911 to explain what she witnessed.
“Is it a vehicle driving the wrong lane?” a dispatcher said, cutting the woman off.
h!” she replied, sound- ing surprised the dispatcher knew what she was talking about.
In the same area, another
man called in shock.
“I mean, I’m scared. I’ve never seen a car going that fast going in the opposite direction on 95 in the emergency lane.”
According to dispatch communications, Boca Raton police and the Broward County Sheriff ’s Office were asked to set up along the county line on northbound I-95 in anticipation of the vehicle. Selva’s rented SUV never made it that far.
After striking three cars head-on, the vehicle came to a stop near the Lantana exit on northbound I-95. When deputies and Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrived at the scene of the crash, they used a Taser on Selva. When that didn’t work and he did not listen to their commands, Deputy Connor Haugh shot and killed the 22-year-old, according to authorities.
The roadway was closed for several hours as authorities investigated the scene. Haugh was put on leave under the sheriff ’s office policy in deputy-involved shootings. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is assigned to investigate sheriff’s office shootings. As of this week, its case is still open.
Riviera Beach police Maj. John Lewis was one of the drivers on I-95 Wednesday morning. When he saw Selva pass by him, driving against northbound traffic, he tried to call FHP and was placed on hold. After that, he tried the sheriff ’s office and was placed on hold. Finally, he called his own department to try to get through to someone and tell them what was going on.
Lewis “believed that the driver was going to kill someone,” according to a sheriff ’s office report. “If he had not already.”