I-95 shooting death likely was random
Police unable to establish connection between killer, late-night driver in Boca
A mystery involving one of the victims of a South Florida shooting rampage that left three dead and snarled Interstate 95 traffic for hours in February has been solved — mostly.
A newly released police report provides the most comprehensive account yet of how a Boca Raton man, Edvin Milkevic, encountered his killer, now-deceased Hugo Selva, entirely at random on I-95.
Milkevic was driving in his black Nissan 370Z on a stretch of the highway in Boca in the early morning hours of Feb. 7 when Selva shot Milkevic in his left bicep and the left side of his head. What specifically led to the shooting may never be answered: Both men are dead, and police could find no previous connection between them.
The report shows Boca Raton police talked to Milkevic’s girlfriend, whowas distraught over his death and had wanted to marry him. Thewoman, Milkevic’s family and his friends said the 29-year-old restaurant manager, born in Lithuania, had no enemies and couldn’t give police any leads.
“During subsequent records
checks into Edvin Milkevic’s background, I found no red flags or risk indicators of him being a victim of homicide,” Tim Kurdys, a major crimes investigator, wrote in the report released Thursday.
Milkevic was the only random victim among the four people that Selva, 22, of Lake Worth, shot during his 20-hour spree of violence that stretched from West Palm Beach to Boca. The rampage ended when a Palm Beach County deputy shoth im on I-95 in Lantana.
Those other encounters were:
On the afternoon of Feb. 6, Selva wounded Charles Brown Jr., 32, of Boynton Beach, with a shot to his lower back near the Dutchman Motor Lodge at 7211 S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach after a marijuana transaction. Selva called police to confess to the crime immediately after. He said hewould come to the police station but never did. Brown, who later picked Selva out of a lineup, told police he had been selling Selva marijuana for about a week before the incident.
About 12 hours later, in the wee hours of Feb. 7, he shot “former friend” Anthony Fonti, 21, in Bentwater Circle in Boynton Beach; Fonti survived the injury, according to a police report.
About seven hours after shooting Milkevic on I-95, at 9:30 a.m., Selva shot his girlfriend Nicole Novak, 26, about 9:30 a.m., outside a Lake Worth convenience store in the 1600 block of South Dixie Highway.
After stashing Novak’s body in the car, he drove south into northbound traffic, at the Southern Boulevard exit, and, after three crashes in Lantana, was met by a Palm Beach County deputy who shot him dead after a Taser didn’t subdue him. A report on that is pending from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
A ballistics report showed that the same .45-caliber Glock that killed Novak also had fired the bullets that killed Milkevic.
After Fonti’s shooting, but before killing his girlfriend, the mother of his young child, Selva was southbound on I-95 for reasons that may never be known. That’s where he encountered Milkevic.
At 2:43 a.m., a Florida Highway Patrol trooper at a nighttime paving job on I-95 heard a crash near the Yamato Road exit. Milkevic’s black Nissan 370Z had hit a construction barrel and gone up the grassy swale on the west side of the highway. The trooper found Milkevic bleeding inside the car.
Milkevic was taken to Delray Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead two hours later. The head wound proved fatal, the report shows.
Police found the driver’s side window rolled down and the passenger side window was smashed and broken. Police found a bullet hole inthe driver’s sidedoor and a deformed bullet was found on the passenger side.
Gian Marco, whoworked with Milkevic at Pasta and… Ristorante Italiano in Margate, said it’s “absolutely true” that no one had any reason to kill Milkevic, who had practiced law in his native country before coming to the United States about10 years ago.
“He was actually my best friend,” Marco said Thursday.
His sister, Elizabeth S to g ni yenko, declined to comment.
The report released Thursday shows that on the last evening of his life, Milkevic arrived at his Boca townhouse about 11:30 p.m. afterworking his restaurant job and showered. From there, he went alone to the Banyan Café in Delray Beach, arriving at about 12:30 a.m. Records show he left at 2:30 a.m. His car was seen on surveillance video of businesses along the route heading west on Atlantic Avenue, not speeding or being followed by any other vehicles, the report says. The timing of the surveillance video shows that Milkevic did not make any stops after leaving the cafe.
Boca police spokesman Mark Economou said there’s no way of knowing what immediately preceded Selva firing at Milkevic’s Nissan 370Z, which was found awash in blood, on the steering wheel, the front console and the passenger side’s interior windshield.