Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Two serial killers stalk Florida cities, message scrawled in victim’s blood

Episode Date: November 14, 2017

Two Florida cities have been hit by suspected serial killers in recent weeks. Homeless men were targeted in Ft. Lauderdale, with 3 men killed, while a killer in Tampa is believed to be responsible for a series of street shootings. Tampa police believe a body found Tuesday is a 4th victim of the serial killer in that city. Nancy Grace explores the investigations with Dr. Brian Russell, a psychologist and lawyer who hosts the ID channel's "Fatal Vows" series, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, reporter Chuck Roberts and co-host Alan Duke. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. from guns to machetes, even a handsaw. Three men are dead. This man was apparently targeting homeless. He shot two homeless men in their sleep. One was shot in the neck. Days later, he hit again. Completely without provocation, pulled the pistol out and shot this gentleman in the head and killed him. He burglarized the truck and the items he stole, he apparently used to kill another homeless man. Next to the victim was a pipe, a machete, and a handsaw all covered in blood. On the floor next to the victim was four-stop wait time written in blood. A serial killer stalking the streets of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Three dead.

One of the victims had words written in the victim's own blood. Why? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. We are on the trail of not one, but two serial killers in Florida. One in Tampa, one in Fort Lauderdale. There's no doubt in my mind they're not the same killer. Their M.O.s are entirely different. I want to go straight out to Crime Stories investigative reporter Chuck Roberts. Chuck, it is so great to hear your voice again, my old friend and colleague. I want to get right down to business. Tell me, starting at the beginning with the first murder in Fort Lauderdale. Tell me who, what, where, when, and why. Three murders, Nancy, in seven days. The first, October 20th, a couple of sleeping homeless men

were shot outside a gas station in Lauder Hill, which is just west of Fort Lauderdale. Larry Scott... Wait, wait, wait. What did you say? In where? Lauder Hill. I'm going to write that down because I have been to Fort Lauderdale, or as many people, my husband calls it Fort Lickerdale. I won't go into why.

So Lauder Hill, is that what you're saying? Yeah, it's a little incorporated town just west of Fort Lauderdale. In fact, the murder scenes are only a couple of miles apart. So we're not talking about a great distance. You know what's significant to me here, Chuck, is the area. I mean, I'm looking at every single scintilla of evidence. Like, what does it mean that the killer is targeting to start with homeless people in Lauder Hill, which is, as you were saying, just west of Fort Lauderdale. Every fact means something.

And I've told this story before, Chuck, and I think I told you one time we were on the air together. I remember one of the Jane Does I prosecuted, and it was a serial killer. And it hurt a lot, Chuck, that I did not know who she was. I never knew who she was. And I had to have an artist reconstruct what her face looked like because it had decomposed so much. And at the scene was found about four feet from the body, an earring, one earring. And we determined it was hers. And that one earring told me a wealth of information, such as the assault and the murder occurred there.

Because I found the earring had been torn from her ear from the autopsy report, which meant she struggled. Okay. It was out in a field, which means that's not where she was abducted. I mean, from one, and there was a lot more to be determined from the placement of that one earring and how it got there. What I'm saying is every clue, as you well know, Chuck, matters. So I'm trying to write this all down as fast as I can. So it's in Lauder Hill, just west of Fort Lauderdale. Okay, go ahead. Sorry about that. Sure. The man killed was Larry Scott.

The other victim was shot in the neck and survived, but he's still in critical condition. And then the next day, a 50-year-old fast food employee from Fort Lauderdale, a guy named John Jackson, he was working on a broken-down carold fast food employee from Fort Lauderdale, a guy named John Jackson. He was working on a broken-down car at a convenience store, and this lanky kid in a white tank top approached. They talked for a few minutes. Wait, wait, wait.

Sorry to slow you. Hold on. A 50-year-old guy working on an old car outside, right? Right. Outside a fast food store. Was the fast food store in operation no it was closed at the time this is this is 1 a.m well i gotcha okay 1 a.m i'm not gonna even ask why he's working on a car at 1 a.m but i can tell you this chuck when i was prosecuting you know hardly made any money at all i had two night jobs i taught two classes at georgia state

university i would get home at 10 o'clock and cut my grass. I'm sure the neighbors loved that. So after that drama, you know, I wouldn't finish till 11. I never asked why somebody working on their car at 1am because they may very well ask why was she cutting her grass at 11 o'clock at night? Okay, that was before Chuck, I knew you're supposed to lower the blade. So I would cut it in like four days later, I'm like, why is the grass grown again? Okay. I knew how to cut grass. I knew how to crank the thing, but I did not know to lower the blade. Go ahead and laugh, Jackie.

Go ahead. Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh. All right. So he's out working on a car at 1 a.m. out in the open outside a closed restaurant. Okay. Go ahead. You know what's interesting? Sorry. Observation. It's always somebody out in the open outside a closed restaurant. Okay, go ahead. You know what's interesting? Sorry, observation. It's always somebody out in the open. We don't see him going into homes

or businesses yet anyway. He gets people out in the open. So it's like hunting for sport. He's not targeting any particular person. It's just whoever he can find at night outside. Exactly. Well, they talk for a while and then he pulls a gun and shoots Jackson in the head and then jogs away, because we know this because it's all videotaped. There's a surveillance camera in operation, and the police recover that,

and they take a still of that murder. Chuck, he was shot in the head, so he was killed instantly. Is that right? As far as we know, yes. I'm sure he was. And they found shell casings, nine millimeter shell casings there

with a stamp on them that proved pretty critical. What kind of stamp? Actually, the letters are S and B, 9 by 1917, which would tell them what kind of ammo was used. Gotcha. And then they could compare that with the ammo used in the earlier killings the day before. Brilliant.

In Lauderhill. Let me ask you this, too. Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, death investigator, and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. You know, Joe Scott, I'm comparing and the dichotomy of a homeless couple that was out, shot, one dead, one in the neck. He must have learned that that guy survived and was in the hospital unable to speak. So his next victim, according to Chuck Roberts, was shot in the head. What do you think about that? Lots of times with serial killers, Nancy, you'll have these events where they actually kind of learn and grow from in the practice of what they're doing. And it's horrible to say that

it is practice, but it is. There's almost a measurable curve when these individuals begin to go out and kill people. And so he became more efficient or was becoming more efficient at this point in time. And to Dr. Brian Russell, psychologist and lawyer and host of Investigation Discovery Channel's Fatal Vows series, which is an awesome series, Dr. Russell, I want to get right now. We're now on the third victim, two dead. What is your take on this guy's, let me say, hunting style? Well, you know, Nancy, to follow up on what was just said, it's interesting to me that, yes, it does seem that he became more precise in his targeting of shooting the third victim in the head. But when you ask yourself, well, why is that to minimize the likelihood of his being caught?

Because now that there's an intended murder victim who has survived, that person might talk and describe who it is that tried to kill him. That's one thought. But then here we have the third victim shot in an area where it's highly likely that there would be some kind of camera, which there was. So what that says to me is the targeting of the head, the shooting the third guy in the head was less about not getting caught and more about making sure that the victim died. So this is about, you know, completing the murder more than it is about avoiding getting caught. I'm not a ballistics expert, but I'm thinking 12 gauge with the SB 9 by 1917. I want to go forward. We are talking for those of you that

have just joined us about the fact that not only is Tampa being stalked by a serial killer, the bus stop killer, as I call him, who is gunning down people as they leave the bus. But now another serial killer has emerged in Fort Lauderdale. I mean, Joseph Scott Morgan, what is it about Florida? They and I believe probably California have produced possibly New York have produced more serial killers than other states put together. Yeah. Yeah. The two locales particularly have over the course of my career. I worked a lot of things that emerged out of Florida here in the South.

And it it would seem I don't know, the only connectivity I have is that it would seem that there's a large transient population. And if you're talking about individuals that are involved in serialized events, transient populations tend to make for easy targets, whether they're in the sex trade, they're disaffected, homeless, that type of thing. So it's almost like a ripe hunting field, if you will. You know, Chuck Roberts, Crime Stories contributing investigative reporter, my longtime friend and colleague, Chuck, I don't know if you've ever read these books, but I've read, I think every one of them, that was before I had children, by Carl Hyasson and he he bases all of his books in Florida where he is and a lot of it deals with all the transients as they collide into I guess as some would call it property society I don't know how proper society really is they're as mean as hyenas as far as I'm concerned but he talks about transients and grifters that come to Florida Chuck is it

because of the warm weather there are interstates leading straight to Florida it's easy to get there on a bus practically paying nothing and then when you get there if you don't have a place you can live outside you you can easily pull that off in Florida. And there are large metropolitan cities, if that's what you want. Why, Chuck, are so many grifters attracted to Florida? I think it is the warm weather. I think the fact that they don't have to worry about coats and, you know, heavy blankets and shelters like that, formal shelters. And there's probably an abundance of fast food restaurants where they can pick up a little quick cash and then move on.

I think some of these victims were in and out of being homeless. I don't think they were homeless, you know, for years and years. They just fell on hard times, I guess, including that third victim on October 27th. I want to go back to you, Dr. Brian Russell, the host of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vows series, the thinking behind someone that just goes hunting for people. And I have prosecuted people like this, and it was not my, I barely had time and energy to put the case together the way I wanted to with photos and charts and posters and

plenty of proof and all the witnesses prepared and the arguments done and the law researched. I could not, I didn't have the understanding to go into their minds, Dr. Russell. What is the thinking of somebody that goes hunting for people? Well, you know, when you look at a case like this where these are victims apparently of sort of convenience, you know, these are victims that were easy for this guy to find out in the open. Sometimes we think that people target homeless people, prostitutes, people in walks of life like that because they see them as sort of throwaway people, prostitutes, people in walks of life like that because they see them as sort of

throwaway people, which is horrible to say, but they see them that way. Or they see them as people who are unlikely to have a lot of folks who are going to be concerned and out looking for them right away, trying to find them, you know, different from what you would have if you, you know, killed someone who was jogging in a higher socioeconomic status neighborhood where you would imagine that she'll quickly be missed and the cops will quickly be on the trail of whoever killed her. But I think the bottom line in all of it is something that you and I have talked about many times over the years. One of the lessons, I think, in the work that you've done and the work that you and I have tried to do, both of us, is that there is evil on this planet. There is evil in this world.

These people that do these things almost never is it a product of mental illness. And what I mean by that is that these are not mentally healthy people, of course, but almost never are they so mentally ill that they would qualify for a not guilty by reason of insanity defense. They know what they're doing. They think it through. There's planning, preparation, and practice in it. And they know it's wrong and they go right ahead and do it anyway. And so that's, I call that evil. And I guess every listener has to think about what you call it. But when somebody does something they know is wrong and they go right ahead and do it anyway, psychology really sort of, you ask, well, what's going on in the minds of these people? At some point, psychology kind of leaves off and philosophy has to come in. You know what's funny? Funny odd, not funny. Ha ha. Dr. Russell is there's

something about the words good and evil that everybody, especially journalists, seem to shy away from. It's as if you say something is evil, then you're the weirdo. But I'm like you on this, Dr. Russell, at some point, if it's not a mental illness, what is it? There's only that word. That's the only word I can think of is just pure evil. And I believe it was you talking about targeting homeless because they're kind of considered by some people to be throwaways.

You know what? A lot of people, including me, for many, many years, were one paycheck away from homeless. One paycheck out. If I didn't get that paycheck, I couldn't pay the rent and I'd be out. And that was for years, years, believe it or not, from getting out of law school. I had a job. I always was employed. I've been employed since I was 15.

But one paycheck away from eviction and homeless. Sure, I could have probably found somebody to move in with, but could have gone back home. but I would never have done that. You know, part of the reason, because you make a really interesting point, that people do shy away from, you know, if I say, well, there's evil in the world, some people will say, oh, he's not being scientific or he's being religious or whatever but and I think part of that is that everybody out there wants to believe that someday people like me people in the mental health professions are gonna stop all this because we're going to learn how to spot what's going on in the minds of these people early

before they do a lot of damage and we're gonna learn how to fix them and and that's comforting for people they think well we're just you know the science is just a little bit way just like with cancer or something we're going to learn how to fix them. And, and that's comforting for people. They think, well, we're just, you know, the science is just a little bit, uh, just like with cancer or something, we're going to cure this kind of a thing. And I wish I could tell you that that was true, but I'm not that big of a narcissist. It isn't true. We're never going to stop it because like I said, some of these people know exactly what they're doing and they go right ahead and do it anyway. And, and for many, many people listening, that is actually more frightening. Guys, I want to pause and thank our partner in addition to our awesome guests, Dr. Brian Russell, Joe Scott Morgan, and Chuck Roberts. You know, you just said something else, Dr. Russell, that people are afraid to say they

may be religious. Well, you know what? I'll put it out there. I'm a Christian. And I'll tell you why I don't often say it is because I'm such a very bad example of one that I really don't do it justice. I don't want to give it a bad name. But let me just say, I'm practicing at it. I want to thank our partner making today's program possible. And it is Link AKCc listen christmas is right around the corner with all the other holidays don't leave your dog out of the fun get the link akc smart collar then you must have a gift believe it or not it's backed by the american kennel club the link akc collar catch this is a gps locator and a fitness activity tracker all rolled into one smartphone app. It even has an LED light and temperature sensor.

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are standing by to help. You hear that train a coming? Call pound 250 on your cell phone and say the keyword grace. Don't delay. Call today. That's pound 250, keyword grace. Call pound 250 and say grace. I want to go back to the serial killers stalking Fort Lauderdale and Tampa. Happening simultaneously. Back to Chuck Roberts, Crime Stories investigative contributing reporter. Chuck Roberts, so great to have you with us again. Let me tell you that. I want to get back to, we've gone through three victims in Fort Lauderdale.

The first two guys were minding their own business. They get shot, I think one in the head, one in the neck, who's still in intensive care and critical condition. Then shortly thereafter, a guy's out working on his car. He gets shot in the head, dies instantly. But there's another victim, Chuck, isn't there? There is, and it was only three days later in Fort Lauderdale, not far from Broward Road, the main east-west artery. A man named Derek Tucker had been sleeping in a storage unit, and he was murdered with a nine-pound vice, a machete, and a hacksaw.

And that's where a message was scrawled in his blood. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a total departure. It is. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would suspect this was a completely different killer. The MO, the modus operandi, method of operation is so different. Would you mind, Chuck Roberts, saying that one more time? Derek Tucker, poor guy sleeping in a storage unit. I mean, I feel so darn guilty for

having a home and a family and food on the table. And this guy is sleeping in a storage shelter. Oh, man. And then this. What was the M.O. again, Chuck? A machete, a nine-pound vice, and a hacksaw. He was brutally, brutally beaten, and that's where a message was scrawled in his own blood nearby, reading, four, stop, wait, time. The num numeral four and then stop wait time

and police later determined that the serial killer had thought he had claimed his fourth victim well wait a minute chuck that uh that changes my thinking about him thinking his second victim was alive and in the hospital and therefore shot the third victim in the head this shows if he put scrawl the number four in the victim's own blood that means he thinks this is his fourth murder i would guess. Exactly right. Go ahead, Chuck. That's exactly right. And apparently he was not aware that the other person had survived the shooting earlier, three days earlier. But it's amazing. These all occur within a one-week period. And police have only a still photograph from a videotape from the second incident, John Jackson, the 50-year-old who was working on that broken-down car. Let me understand something.

Hold on. I want to get back to, okay, we've got our fourth now shooting victim. You said a nine-pound vice, a machete, and a hacksaw was used on Derek Tucker, a poor guy who was now living in a storage shelter. How did he use a vice on the victim as a murder weapon, Chuck? I don't know. That's not in any of the charging documents or any of the evidence that has been uncovered. But all three were found at the scene. And the police believe that all three at some point were used, they all had been stolen from a truck which was parked outside that storage unit.

So those were the weapons that were used. These are totally, completely, Joseph Scott Morgan, death investigator, completely acts of convenience. Yeah. He's utilizing weapons that are at his disposal or that he's immediately recovered. Also, there's a bigger theme here, Nancy, in my opinion. This gentleman that was killed was absolutely positively brutalized. And this shows, in my opinion, at least, a marked escalation in this event. Lots of times these people that

perpetrate these kinds of crimes do these things in order to shock the individuals that they know that are going to find these bodies, to put us back on our heels. Many times it's some innocent person that walks along and stumbles over the body. And also it's the police, the investigators as well. I've seen a number of cases where bodies have been mutilated in an escalation. And the thought has always been, in our community at least, is that these individuals,

and I hate to use the term because it sounds so Hollywood, but they're kind of laughing at investigators and thumbing their nose relative to attempting to shock us when we walk into the scene, these things that we see. Hollywood, but they're kind of laughing at investigators and thumbing their nose relative to attempting to shock us when we walk into the scene, these things that we see. And they are shocking. That's kind of one of the reasons we're a buffer between society and these things that

are so horrible out there. And we document. I want to go to Dr. Brian Russell, psychologist and lawyer, host of Investigation Discovery Channel's Fatal Vows series. Dr. Russell, what does this message mean? And it's the words, the number four, stop, wait, time. Well, it sounds to me like it's something to do with number of victims. And it's chilling when you see the stop, wait portion of this message

because the wait suggests to me that there's more, the plan involves more killing. So the for, stop, wait, and then what? That is the chilling question, then what? So right now, Chuck Roberts, we have four victims. One hanging on by a thread in a hospital bed, an intensive care unit. We know that one was shot outside an abandoned gas station or location. The second one was shot there the same morning.

The third guy was shot in the parking lot of a Dixie food store. It was closed. And that was just two blocks from the Fort Lauderdale police station. Yes, exactly. Isn't that right? It's brazen. It's hard to imagine someone not realizing who lives there, how close they are to the police station. Perhaps he wanted to be caught.

Perhaps, you know, it's impossible to really get into the mind of someone who would do this. The third victim, let me see, I guess it would be the fourth victim, Tucker, was killed sleeping in a public storage unit. I will never look. I see past public storage units all the time. I'll never look at them the same. You know, I've seen an escalation of violence related to storage units. Bodies are hidden there. The rent is paid.

They think nobody will ever check in there. I want to talk about any possible connection between the Fort Lauderdale serial killer and the Tampa serial killer. Now, the MOs are entirely different, aren't they, Joe Scott Morgan? Yeah, they are, Nancy. Let's keep in mind that in Tampa, those events are occurring in relatively close proximity to bus routes. And there's some thinking there, there's some connectivity between these bus routes and bus stops. And there's a bit more of an organized, you know, kind of thread that runs through that as opposed to this. And I wouldn't presume to

step on the doctor's toes here because this is more of his area, but with this particular individual that we're seeing in the Fort Lauderdale area, this happened over a very short period of time, and the individuals were not, it just seems very randomized, if you will. The one connectivity is that they might be kind of on the fringes. The people over in Tampa lived these lives that required them to get on public transportation and go to and from school and work and those sorts of things, and you're just not seeing that with the Fort Lauderdale situation. You know, that's true, Dr. Brian Russell. The Tampa serial killing victims were all getting off of a bus and making their way home. One had gotten a 20-something-year-old autistic guy, had gotten off at the wrong stop and was walking back toward another bus

to get back on the right route. But all of them were getting off buses and heading to a predestined location, typically home, when they were gunned down at a distance. So the MOs between the Fort Lauderdale and the Tampa serial killers are very different. And I think there are different weapons and they are separated by about a four-hour drive, Dr. Russell. I really don't see it as the same person. No, I don't either. And it's interesting because, you know, he just said, I don't want to step on the doctor's toes. And I would never feel that anyone was doing that because one of the things, as you know, that I am the first to admit is that you always hear experts coming on shows saying, well, you know, it's this.

If you see somebody doing something up close and personal with a machete, it's a rage killing. Or they'll even get as unscientific as to say, well, these are serial killers, so they have to be white guys in their whatever years of life. And the real truth is, we don't know as much as we psychology and psychiatry experts a lot of times say that we do. And I think to be the most genuine is to admit that. We just had a serial killer operating in the Kansas City area, not far from my mom's house. And everybody in the local media was saying, oh, it's a white guy between the ages of this and this. And it turned out to be a very young black man. So, you know, there's actually not a lot that we can, in fact,

there was one interesting study that showed that psychological profilers were really not much more accurate than psychics. And I can tell you when I have gone sometimes and talked with people in prison or jail in doing forensic evaluations for court cases, they have laughed at some of the speculation that went on about, oh, they said I did this because I was enraged or I did this because of whatever, or I picked these victims because they were throwaway people. And they go, it was just convenience. I happen to have this victim available, or I happen to have this weapon available. Or I think sometimes also they're like addicts where the violence, the thrill of the

violence at a distance with a gun becomes not so intoxicating. And so now they want to get more think sometimes also they're like addicts where, you know, the violence, the thrill of the violence at a distance with a gun becomes not so intoxicating. And so now they want to get more up close and personal because it increases the thrill. You know what's interesting about this last guy that was gunned down in a storage unit? This guy was actually not homeless. Let me tell you what I've learned about him. Derek Tucker had just moved out of his apartment, and it would only be two or three days before he could settle into a new place. And on one of those nights, he slept in his storage unit. Now, it's been a common perception that he was homeless.

This guy was, and this one night put him in the path of a serial killer. He was a very popular coach. He was the father of eight. He was a chef. And that one night, he only has three nights after moving out of one apartment until he moves into a new one. He says, hey, you know what? I'm not paying for a hotel. I'm going to sleep in my storage unit. I can do this for three nights. That one night he goes, he runs into a serial killer. Now, I'm getting a little bit of a conflicting report to Chuck Roberts, Crime Stories investigative reporter, regarding the ammunition. Now, I thought that what was written on the shell casing

indicated it was a 12-gauge that he was using, which, in my mind, differentiated him from the Tampa killer. But, Chuck Roberts, do we know the type of ammunition the Fort Lauderdale killer was using? Well, Chief McLeone identified it as a 9-millimeter, and I think it was a Ruger P-95, to be precise, and the shell casings found at the scene, and I'm not a forensic expert, but S&B 9x19-17, if that comports with 9mm weapon, then that would have been the murder weapon. You know what, you're right. You and

Jackie were right. Jackie was the one that pointed out to me it's not a shotgun shell and the fact that he's using a 9, not a shotgun, makes it more like the Tampa killing. But what have we learned to Chuck Roberts about the suspect that we now know

has just been identified from that steal? It was video surveillance outside the fast food store, right, that got him and it was turned into a steal? Exactly. What do we know about this guy, Chuck Roberts? Well, they took that video, that steal, to homeless shelters in the area and at a place called LifeNet for Families, Rose Johnson,

one of the employees said, yes, it's the guy who comes here for the feeding program and identified him as Nathaniel Patgrave, a 22-year-old Jamaican native. And he had been arrested earlier for a stolen car, a car that had been actually a pickup truck that had been stolen in Miami Gardens September 18th. But they let him go just before Derek Tucker was murdered. Twelve hours before Derek Tucker was murdered. Twelve hours before Derek Tucker was murdered, Nathaniel Petgrave was in custody on the stolen vehicle charge, but they let him go. And even before that, on September 25th, they had him under arrest for firing a gun, a nine millimeter gun, but it was returned to him a few days later because he had a weapons

permit. Oh my stars. Was that the murder weapon, Chuck Roberts? It's impossible to know because they haven't found it. When they searched his lean-to where he was living, they couldn't find it. And he said, you'll never find it. He was apparently working as a security guard part-time. That may have been why he had a gun permit. Oh dear Lord in heaven. He's working as a security guard part-time. That may have been why he had a gun permit.

Oh, dear Lord in heaven. He's working as a security guard. You know, I used to notice that all the time, Joe Scott Morgan, when I was prosecuting. I'd look down at what the defendant had put on his bookend. Information, you know, like tattoos, height, weight, blah, blah. And it would say, occupation security guard. And I would think, how in the hay are you working in security and here it's popped up again joe scott one thing you have to keep in mind is

that with security guards uh other than the fact that sometimes they can in fact carry weapons it gives them access to people and it also puts the guard down of other individuals and we've seen this over and over again with a lot of different serial killers where they like to pretend that they're cops they have positions of authority this sort of thing and they can kind of interject themselves into people's lives and i don't necessarily know that that's the case with this fellow but it does give them access i'm going to get back to the killer but But, you know, Dr. Brian Russell, psychologist and lawyer, host of Fatal Vows. I just keep thinking about Derek Tucker because I know more about him. He was an assistant youth football coach to hundreds of girls and boys over two decades, 20 years.

He volunteered at Hallandale Beach. He was described as selfless, says the Police Athletic League program coordinator, that the kids loved him. He was a fixture in the community, always there. A lot of children that needed stability in their lives. He was the one they turned to. Derek Tucker, the father of eight, the chef, the guy that moved out of his apartment to move into another one. And he had three days in between. So he says, Hey, I'm gonna sleep my storage unit one night. And that's the night he gets murdered. A father of eight. I just don't understand it. Brian Russell. One of the things that I've always loved about working with you is the attention that you give to the victims. And we've been talking this morning about some of the lessons that we have

tried, and you certainly have done a better job than I have over the years, to impart to people. One is that there's evil in the world. Another one is it's hard to know before we catch somebody a lot about them. It's hard to profile. And a third one is the compassion that we have in these cases should always lie with the innocent victims and all of the innocent lives that are affected. And unfortunately, what I've seen over my career is in our society, there is so much misplaced compassion for, I'm sure we're going to hear that, oh, this guy had a bad life in Jamaica growing up.

He had a rough childhood. He had, there were drugs, there was abuse, there was this, there was that. You know what? I don't care. I don't give a damn about any of that. None of that, none of that is important to me. What's important to me is that this person, for whatever reasons, felt entitled to take out of the world a wonderful guy like this man.

My compassion is always like yours with the victims. Guys, I want to pause, and I want to really thank not only our guests, Brian Russell, Joe Scott Morgan, and Chuck Roberts, and of course, Alan Duke and Jackie with me here for being here today. I want to thank you for listening. It just means so much to me that you guys have been with me over the years, ever since I took to the airways, straight from the courtroom, and now you're with me here. I just can't thank you enough. I want to also thank our partner making our program possible today. All you business owners out there know how important it is. You got to

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I'd say I'm 99.9% sure they're two different people. You know what is shocking to me? Chuck Roberts, Crime Stories contributing reporter Chuck, is that he actually told police he was disappointed. He wanted to kill five people. A total of five, exactly. But he never said why he targeted homeless people. That never came out. And he never took police to the gun.

That has not yet been recovered. I know you're right, Chuck Roberts. I know you're right. Although I claim Derek Tucker was not homeless. I mean, this guy, Tucker had been a chef at the Bahama Breeze Island Grill at Sawgrass Mills. He loved Japanese anime TV, especially one called Dragon Ball Super. And he talked about it like a little kid would, like my children, like my son was obsessed with Scooby-Doo for years. Because when I was doing Dancing with the Stars my husband

had the children alone for the first time really and he let John David develop an unhealthy obsession with Scooby-Doo and Lucy an unhealthy obsession with cleaning all the furniture with Purell. I came home one time and all the furniture in our little rental it was a three-room rental unit we were living in during Dancing with the Stars and all the furniture in the den was bleached white from days and days and days of Purell rubbed into it with a wet wipe I mean this I'm like David the furniture we're gonna have to pay for all this well just so you know it was like three hundred dollars for all the furniture that was the kind of rental place i was living in but what i'm saying is what am i saying what was i even okay he was obsessed with this anime tv series dragon ball super he talked about it like he was a kid and he loved sports he loved coaching all this is according to the restaurant manager

lauren james he said he was so hard working he followed the recipes to the t everybody loved his food he was just loved and the one night he slept in his storage unit and i've got to tell you there were times i thought about renting a storage unit because I was so broke you know when I was prosecuting and working two jobs at night I ruled it out of course very quickly but I mean a lot of Americans are in that spot and it's just breaking my heart Chuck that this guy and I'm upset about the others it's not that i'm not it's just i he's i know so much so much more about derrick tucker that he's more real to me well i i it's not clear that petgrave knew that he was you know employed and was only there temporarily it could have been a total stranger who we assumed was was homeless And Petgrave, the killer, the alleged killer, was homeless himself.

He had a part-time job, but, you know, he obviously couldn't make ends meet. And, you know, it's fascinating to me why anyone in that circumstance would target someone in a similar circumstance. That I don't get. Yeah, they were all in the same boat. Exactly. So, Dr. Brian Russell, this is leading me to an observation. Dr. Brian Russell, Joe Scott Morgan, Chuck Roberts with me.

Dr. Russell, when I was prosecuting, it's actually against the rules of evidence. You cannot do it. You cannot bring in evidence about the victim in life in front of the jury during guilt innocent phase at penalty phase just when you're seeking the death penalty you can but not in guilt innocence in other words the jury never knows anything about the victim and i would struggle to find a way to introduce a photo of the victim in life and i would find a way way. For instance, I would say, well, you know, the autopsy photos, you can't tell where the wound, the entry and the exit point. I have this photo to show. I would come up with a legally accepted way because I wanted the jury, Dr. Russell, to know who was murdered and to know about the life that was taken, Dr. Russell, to know who was murdered and to know about the life that was

taken, Dr. Russell. Yeah, I think it's such an interesting, when you're talking to law students about this, for example, and they say, well, you know, why do we want to talk about that in the guilt phase of the trial? Because the fact that the victim was a wonderful person doesn't prove anything about whether the defendant did it or not. And that is a valid point, and it is the reason why we don't have much evidence like that coming in. But I'm with you. I think to really understand what occurred here, we have to have a sense of who was targeted and what was lost to the world and to the society and particularly to the people who loved and cared about that person. You know, I want to go back. Y'all don't get mad at me. I've just got to tell you one more thing

about Derek Tucker. His friends said he was too proud to couch surf with relatives and friends when he moved out of his apartment he wouldn't do it and that why that's why the one night he was sleeping in that storage unit and the suspect reportedly used a stolen nine pound pipe wrench a machete and a handsaw or vice that must be the pipe wrench they're talking about and a machete and a handsaw or vice, that must be the pipe wrench they're talking about, and a machete and a handsaw as murder weapons, writing in blood for stop, wait, time. But it doesn't end there. There is an eyewitness account of people that say they were his next victims. The couple who unknowingly helped the serial killer discover the secret grave he was planning to bury them in after he slaughtered them too. It's still not over. Chuck Roberts, what can you tell me about this couple?

The suspect meets them at their campsite when he asked if he could stay there with them. Is that right? Yeah, he sort of crashed through the brush. This is off State Road 7 in a town called Plantation. And he asked if they could join him. He wanted to set up camp there. He seemed, they said, kind of innocent, and he didn't seem to know anything about being homeless. So apparently he was, you know, at loose ends very lately, but it turned out to be 22-year-old Nathaniel Petgrave, and obviously he was far from innocent. This couple unknowingly helping the suspect serial killer find the perfect spot for a grave when they allowed him to stay at their campsite.

And very, very eerie. This couple now say they believe a freshly dug trench may have been a grave intended for one of them. Listen to what they say. Our friend in the police force told us, he's like, you know, I think that grave is for you guys because he thinks we ratted him out. He thinks we ratted him out to the cops. So he went back there and dug two graves.

I think it was him fixing to do me and her. I was shocked when the police told me that they were tossing his camp because they thought he was the one that did that I was very surprised by that because he always seemed like a nice innocent stupid kid he was clean-cut soft-spoken seemed pretty well educated never seemed violent never never I didn't like him I got a bad feeling right off you can ask him from what the police have told us. He was he wanted to kill people and he figured that the best people to kill was homeless people because nobody would miss them. According to one of these two jurors, he says he thought the suspect was fine, that he just wanted to set up camp and they had no reason to suspect anything different. They were left,

he and his wife left very shaken by this close encounter. I mean, Dr. Brian Russell, to think you came that close to a serial killer and actually allowed him to share camp with you. Yeah, it's amazing. And I wonder about this trench. I wonder if it was a part of his preparation to have murdered one of this member of this couple or both and put them in this trench. On the other hand, the other victims, it seems, were sort of left out where they could be found. And it was so it would be another sort of departure if now there was going to be concealment. And it sounds like he did want to kill, for whatever reason, he had five in his mind. He wanted to kill one more person. So it sounds like, you know, if it was going to be one of these two of this couple, it was just going to be one. And so,

so if one ended up in the trench, then the other one presumably is still alive and would be looking for and missing that person. So it's just So it's just all, you know, thank God that this guy's in custody and we don't have to find out. Well, that's really the only thing you can say is thank God this guy, this suspect has been taken into custody. But at this hour, the Tampa serial killer still stalking the city. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.