This case has intrigued me for years because we know as little about who the intended victim was, as we do about the killer himself. I have tried to walk through this with open eyes, and form some educated opinions (and an opinion is all that it is) about what I think happened. I do not intend to offend the families of the victims with these opinions, however not thinking openly of all possible angles will not help bring closure to this mystery.
Going on the assumption that Raymond Barrows was the intended victim, the following makes sense to me: (a) the killer followed he and his family from Miami to Anna Maria; (b) Ray was most likely never alone during the few short days he was there on vacation and not an easy target by himself only; (c) the killer most likely knew where Ray and relatives were staying and I would speculate that he probably staked out the beach house which gave him knowledge that they went boating on 08/01/1980; (d) possibly feeling the pressure to “do the job” he decided to strike when the family returned from fishing; (e) there were probably enough people around the boat ramp to make a hit and run there impossible without being identified; (f) because most accounts point toward Ray being shot first I think helps frame the idea that he was the target and being shot in the neck was probably facilitated by the headrest being in the way of a direct shot to the back of his head; (g) the fact that the two Dumois children, Dr. Dumois, and Col. Matzke were also killed reinforces how motivated this guy was to escape unidentified which I think underscores that it was not just some random act of violence, but a professional job. The killer surely had certain body parts of steel to shoot the driver of the car he was a back seat passenger in while it was rolling down the highway – crazy for sure!
Using available online resources to review the claim made by Donald Frankos, that the killer was Josie Hernandez, I find it hard to accept for these reasons: (a) Hernandez would have been about 23 years old at the time of the killings (and having just arrived in the US from Cuba) and I think all witnesses had the killer as an older man; (b) Ray described the killer as having a New England accent and I find it doubtful that Hernandez was able to fake the accent. Going on the assumption that Ray was the target and he knew it, but could not reveal that for obvious reasons within his family, might have influenced him to be less than upfront about describing the killer (which has been referred to on this thread by others). I also think it helps paint a picture of his death at such a young age (survivor’s guilt?) because if true would have been an enormous stress factor. I’m going to go way out there on this one, but “what if” the killer approached the victims and actually spoke to them in Spanish? Perhaps that was a motivator for the normally conservative/protective Dr. Dumois to agree to give him a lift.
A few odds and ends about Ray that I found fascinating include that he said (interview transcript 08/22/1980) he had “no creditors” which is interesting for someone having the type of employment he had at hotel – not saying it could not happen, just saying it is interesting. In the same interview, when asked for his home phone number he said “we just changed it a month or so ago”, but no further question or explanation as to why, which is interesting. In one of the online articles it said that the son of Ray had stayed home in Miami because there had been a recent burglary at the house, which is also interesting considering that part of the Frankos allegation was that Ray was hit for holding a large quantity of cocaine from an associate. None of these things makes Ray the intended victim, but there seems to be very little about Dr. Dumois that has suspicious overtones (would love to know more about the dog track tie in, and how that could have been related to this at all).
It is too bad that case with this many victims has such little resource data for public viewing, such as a compliation of the photos surrounding the case.
