FL FL - Kingfish Boat Ramp Murders, Holmes Beach, 1 Aug 1980

[Onaliv]

Could be. I was thinking more along the lines of a couple of guys who were just trolling for victims at the beach, and focused on Raymond and Dr. D. maybe watched them all week. Sociopaths. I wonder if the men and the two boys spent a lot of time together on the vacation. And the women and girls did other things,separate from the guys ?

That's always a possibility too, I think if that were the case there would have likely been other similar cases identified (serial killer) or someone would have talked, bragged, etc

 

[Onaliv]

I had thought that Raymond was the target. He was the Bell Captain at the Key Biscayne hotel. A favorite place of many visitors from Colombia at that time. But, not sure about a hired killer following him to Holmes Beach to kill him.When he was in a car with 3 other passengers. jmo

"If" Raymond was the target, without some inside knowledge of his vacation plans, the killer would have likely followed (literally) he and his family (wife & daughter) from the east coast to the west coast and then planned an attack; the upside to that would be a less sophisticated law enforcement situation and fewer people as potential witnesses - the downside is obviously being in unfamiliar territory and not knowing in advance how it would play out. If these killings took place more recently, I'd be inclined to say it could be a gang initiation type thing, but not as likely in 1980.

 

[jaleach123]

One thing is for certain: this crime would be a lot harder to pull off today. Imagine if Matzke had a cellphone or a smartphone. He would have simply only needed to follow the perp back to the car, phone the police, and follow them at a safe distance while he gave the cops information about where they were headed.

 

[Sleuthster]

Thanks for posting this. I haven't seen it before or if I did I don't remember it. He doesn't seem like the greatest witness. He's more concerned about the guy with the homemade trailer than the killer he actually did see. And he did see him because of the hair. The thing he says about not having a shirt I think even in those distorted photos you can tell the guy was wearing a shirt. It's been some time since I've seen them.

If you haven't seen the distorted photos I warn you it's disturbing because it's so frustrating to know if it was just clearer this whole thing could've taken a different turn.

One last thing: it's upsetting to think both of those men talking in the interview are probably dead. It's been so long now.

There is a distorted photo of the perp? Do you know where i could find that? Is it online?

 

[Sleuthster]

I'm beginning to rethink the hitman m.o. reading the deposition of the witness. To me it sounds like they crossed paths with a sociopath that day prior to launching the boat and he waited for them to return. If this is the case did they realize that they had done something to set him off prior that day? I doubt it or they would have recognized him. With a sociopath it could be subtle. One of them looked at his woman when they stopped to get soda or beers (in the parking lot that the perp left his car) for their fishing/boat trip or bumped his car in a parking lot or he could have even thought that they looked at him sideways in some degrading way.

or he saw them earlier at a store looked like they had money and it was an ill fated chance meeting that the victims pay little particular attention to earlier that day and the guy decided to rob them so he laid in wait until the got back and concocted the story about hurting his leg. Maybe he had a prior injury which caused him to limp and permitted him to play injured well to a doctor. After he shot them he determined his plan was not well thought out as the car and boat/trailer jackknifed drawing attention to the situation so he fled with out getting their wallets watches or anything else of value.

I'm thinking it was a chance meeting that morning which resulted in the murder of 4 people and injury of the doctors brother in law.

 

[Sleuthster]

Did we have this on the thread already? I don't remember seeing it so I'll post. This is the victim/witness Raymond Burrows statement https://archive.org/stream/228202-k...-murder-survivor-raymond-barrows-fbi_djvu.txt

 

[Onaliv]

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.

It's easy to discount the claims by Donald Frankos because of his claims of involvement in the Hoffa hit, but why would he have included the tale of the Holmes Beach killings if he had not been told that by somebody? He evidently did not seek out attention from law enforcement, but the other way around. While I'm not sold on the perpetrator being who he identified, I am not as quick to throw out his info entirely and had the cops been able to piece together a link to Raymond this may have been concluded by now.

 

[jaleach123]

There is a distorted photo of the perp? Do you know where i could find that? Is it online?

Oh yes there were several pictures taken by a man driving by the crime scene, but unfortunately the camera was new and not properly calibrated. Here's an article about the man who took the photos. He said he didn't set the camera to autofocus:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/19/100811/mans-blurry-photos-captured-killer.html

Hopefully putting the link in is ok. I can't remember the rules for linking here.

EDIT: I'm looking and I can't find them. They used to be online as part of that multi-series investigation done by a local news station in the area.

 

[Sleuthster]

One of the children was still alive when witnesses got there according to this. http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/227877-kingfish-boat-ramp-murder-eyewitness-warren.html

Of course as mentioned in other posts the photos the news station had online are not there any more but I did find this video with the photo of what looks like a boy injured siting on the ground and I'll always wonder if it was him. So sad.http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/l...f-looking-into-the-kingfish-boat-ramp-murders

 

[Onaliv]

In the weeks following the murders, it looks like the family hired a private investigator (article that discussed the updated composite sketch); I wonder what (if anything) he uncovered?

 

[ekardh]

These damn photos are harder to track down than the Ark of the Covenant.

 

[stereot]

What a strange case, indeed - so brazen and calculated that it seems that whoever did it was preparing for weeks if not months in advance. Given that it happened in the broad daylight there must've been tons of witnesses to it.

Was the mafia or someone important involved in this case and hence it was covered up?

That's just my guess - I just can't imagine why all the witnesses wouldn't talk.

Also, found this recent article on the case:

http://www.bradenton.com/welcome_pa...301_holmes-beach-horror-murders-unsolved.html

 

[jacko241]

I have just finished reading this thread, very odd case. It is curious that the blurry photos taken of the suspect have totally disappeared from any internet source I can find. For sure, this was not a random murder spree, this was carried out with a purpose.

 

[Bud316]

Sup everyone! Anyone still following? I got a ton of stuff to tell and show. Just wanted to make sure anyone was still following..

Bud316

 

[Bud316]

Im trying to finish copying this certain website that had deleted pages and pages of documents from their servers. I live right down the road from Kingfish ramp and this case has caught my eye for years. Here is my problem , this special website, that was put up from a large tv station had all these documents, alot of you may not have seen or knew existed with interviews, drawings, witness statements and pictures/videos as well. I noticed from the pass few days, the pages i am finding, not deleted, are being deleted a day to just a few hours after I get what I need. I try to go back to the page and get a 404 error..

http://web.archive.org/web/20100802...generic/news/crime/Kingfish-Boat-Ramp-Murders

https://www.documentcloud.org/public/search/kingfish boat ramp murders

You may have seen these they are just to show you some stuff i found that been deleted around 2011 from the server.

Bud316

 

[Bud316]

Here is a one of the witness statements. Barbara Wright. She works for the Dr. that was shot..pages 1-5 of 16

 

[Bud316]

pages 6-10 of 16. this lady seems to be doing an investigation of her own.

 

[Bud316]

pages 11-15 of 16 ... Do you think she may not be telling something?

 

[Bud316]

Last page, 16. It seems odd to me, that this lady knows everything about the dr, then she says she knows none of his business, then she says shes never even heard of Ramen Burrows...

 

[Bud316]

Another page, that i luckily already downloaded earlier today is now gone, here is proof.