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

DNA Solves
DNA Solves
DNA Solves

New Posts

They put up the website about an hour before the news started.

They did a nice job on it and hopefully will give some insight into the case.
 
Thanks for the links, folks. This pic is creepy. A passerby took it as the killer was getting out of the car:

20100801-002453-pic-932001924.standalone.prod_affiliate.69.jpg
 
Glad to see this thread revived and hopping.

I don't have much to add: Obviously planned. It seems odd that a "professional" would use a bicycle, although it did provide a good way for him to get close to the victims. But the time, place and method still strikes me as very risky. Like the Bellush case, I wonder if the shooter was from out of state. This would explain how he could go unrecognized.
 
^^I agree that it has to have been a hit. For a while I was hanging on to the possibility that it was just some crazed person hopped up on PCP or something, but a random junkie wouldn't have had a car parked nearby and been able to make such a clean getaway. I also agree, though, that the logistics and circumstances of the crime suggest he wasn't a pro. He's only lucky he wasn't nabbed outright at the scene, or at least had his license plate taken down.
Going with the assassination theory, assuming Dr. Dumois was the target, why waste everyone else in the car? A lot of contradictions and improbabilities in this case.
 
What you have to remember, he did not count on Matzke following him to the Foodway. Doing his recon of the area it was easy to determine that the area was a bottle neck of traffic at 5:00pm, people coming from the Beach and people coming home from work the other way. The bicycle would be an easy way to get to his car if traffic were backed up due to his act and to conceal or ditch it close to the Foodway. If necessary could go into the store and come out with a cart and get into the car. He was not counting on the witness following him. That was the surprise and a witness which had to be eliminated, as he realized the witness saw what he had done.

A well executed plan, deliberate and without panic.
 
^^OK, but there was no reason to carry out the hit just then, at that location. If it was a targeted hit, he could have found and killed the intended victim in a much more convenient place (more secluded, with no one around), at a much more convenient time (after dark). That the killer got away with the crime (so far) speaks more to extraordinary luck than skillful planning and execution.
Another strange dimension is that the Dumoises were on vacation from Tampa. If a hit, somebody had to know that and decide to do it at that time, rather than during more predictable work/school routines.

Below is a second eerie shot of the killer taken by that passerby. Amazing stuff at those links. Suddenly a vault of information has opened.

20100801-002453-pic-863518435.standalone.prod_affiliate.69.jpg
 
Ok. Lets play what if. What if the killer was after Barrows. After all he worked at a popular Miami Beach hotel at a time when the drug trade in Miami was escalating along with murders. Lets say that the killer had been put onto Barrows and he followed him the day he left to meet the Dumois's in Holmes Beach. This would limit the time the killer had to plan his act and make it appear as he did. He could have followed him the first time when he went out in the boat. Put his plan in play and waited for the second time he went out.

Just to emphasize that there are killers capable of doing something like this, I found this article when searching for possible correlations in Miami. Everyone seems to be focusing on the Doctor as the primary target. What if it were Barrows. What if Barrows, while working at the hotel pissed someone off. He may not even have known it.

Take time to read this link.

http://www.skcentral.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=2322

I just don't buy the psycho theory. It was too well planned and too deliberate.
 
capstone1 said:
Ok. Lets play what if. What if the killer was after Barrows. After all he worked at a popular Miami Beach hotel at a time when the drug trade in Miami was escalating along with murders. Lets say that the killer had been put onto Barrows and he followed him the day he left to meet the Dumois's in Holmes Beach. This would limit the time the killer had to plan his act and make it appear as he did. He could have followed him the first time when he went out in the boat. Put his plan in play and waited for the second time he went out.

Just to emphasize that there are killers capable of doing something like this, I found this article when searching for possible correlations in Miami. Everyone seems to be focusing on the Doctor as the primary target. What if it were Barrows. What if Barrows, while working at the hotel pissed someone off. He may not even have known it.

Take time to read this link.

http://www.skcentral.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=2322

I just don't buy the psycho theory. It was too well planned and too deliberate.
Click to expand...

But why try to kill Barrows when he was with the doctor and the kids? That's the think I dont get. I could see if it was the doctor that was the intended target and the kids and Barrow got in the way but not visa versa. then again if it was a hit why not just walk up to Barrows or Dumous (who ever the hit was on) as they are walking to their car or something and shoot them with a silencer.

Also, I was told from the FDLE person that the prime suspect was not from this area. Okay, are they saying this because barrows said the suspect had a new england accent? The tag was a florida tag.

I think it was someone local, someone with a grudge whether they knew one of the victims and followed them there from Tampa or Miami or someone from Bradenton area that had some sort of run in with these guys while they where on vacation there. Afterall it was the last day of their vacation, why wait until then? There is a pic of them fishing in the news article that said it was taken on that same trip. So there had been other fishing expeditions.
 
Oops. I accidentally unsubscribed. Hope this re-establishes.

Out of area was assumed by the accent and lack of recognition.
How do you know there wasn't a silencer? No one reported hearing shots did they? Barrows reported the first thing he thought was they had been hit. That could have been the trauma from his being shot. I have not read accounts where witnesses at the foodway reported hearing the shots or not.

It appears to me that he planned it in such a way so there would be no witnesses. Everyone.

But, that is the trouble with speculation. Like a chess game you have to figure all moves and what would happen. I think we have to stay on track and follow the evidence. What we know happened and how do we interpret that.
 
I edited this post. The news story in the Bradenton newspaper said "shots rang out" and that Barrows heard a "bang" he thought that they backed into something at first. So I dont believe he used a silencer.
 
If you look at the crime scene photos from abc action news, there is one where it looks like a kid is sitting up being tended to with people around him. Is that one of the boys????Was he concious for a point?
 
Regarding the Florida tags. It could be that either the shooter himself or, if it was a murder-for-hire, that person bought a car in Florida and never registered it. Maybe they lifted a tag from another car?

I don't remember reading they had the actual tag number. Did I miss that or did they just get the state?
 
reportertype said:
Regarding the Florida tags. It could be that either the shooter himself or, if it was a murder-for-hire, that person bought a car in Florida and never registered it. Maybe they lifted a tag from another car?

I don't remember reading they had the actual tag number. Did I miss that or did they just get the state?
Click to expand...

I dont believe that they did get a tag #. Story says that witnesses stated it was a Fl tag.

It seems like they thought it was the perps car but it could have been a rental (highly unlikely because of the type of car back then. Not as big of a selection of rental cars back in 1980), stolen, or borrowed from a friend. I think if it was borrowed,leased, or stolen someone would have called LE with this info after seeing in the news that they where looking for this car.
 
Sleuthster said:
I dont believe that they did get a tag #. Story says that witnesses stated it was a Fl tag.

It seems like they thought it was the perps car but it could have been a rental (highly unlikely because of the type of car back then. Not as big of a selection of rental cars back in 1980), stolen, or borrowed from a friend. I think if it was borrowed,leased, or stolen someone would have called LE with this info after seeing in the news that they where looking for this car.
Click to expand...


Thanks for that info. I agree with you, prolly not a rental, etc. I wonder how far the coverage of this extended in 1980. I know it would have been huge along the gulf coast area, but what about the other side of the state and the panhandle?
 
capstone1 said:
Ok. Lets play what if. What if the killer was after Barrows. After all he worked at a popular Miami Beach hotel at a time when the drug trade in Miami was escalating along with murders. Lets say that the killer had been put onto Barrows and he followed him the day he left to meet the Dumois's in Holmes Beach. This would limit the time the killer had to plan his act and make it appear as he did. He could have followed him the first time when he went out in the boat. Put his plan in play and waited for the second time he went out.

Just to emphasize that there are killers capable of doing something like this, I found this article when searching for possible correlations in Miami. Everyone seems to be focusing on the Doctor as the primary target. What if it were Barrows. What if Barrows, while working at the hotel pissed someone off. He may not even have known it.

Take time to read this link.

http://www.skcentral.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=2322

I just don't buy the psycho theory. It was too well planned and too deliberate.
Click to expand...


I had thought that Barrows was the intended victim,because he was actually shot first. To speculate,he was a bell hop at a hotel in Miami.At that time the cocaine "business" was getting into high gear. I always wondered if Barrows was a small time dealer ; he may have scored coke for hotel customers.

He may have stiffed his supplier, tried to be a little too clever,or messed up in some other way...

I think the killer wanted to shoot Barrows ; the others in that car were in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Colombians settled scores,they tended not to care who was in the way...

All JMO
 
mindhunter42 said:
has anyone considered the possibility these killings are related to some type of government work
Click to expand...

Yes,Mindhunter42, I did. In fact that was my only other scenario. But not our government.Maybe the Cuban government.

Also, the Mariel boat lift began on April 14th 1980. The boatlift brought 125000 people from Cuba to Miami. A very high percentage of the people who came in had violent criminal histories. Many others were classified as criminally insane. There is a possibilty that the gunman was a Marielito IMO.

I wonder if the gunman knew either Barrows or the Doctor ? Or knew their families, either in Cuba or Florida ? I thought about the possibility that it was a grudge issue. Is it known how long Barrows had lived in Miami ?

All JMO
 
I just had to post one more time :

The article from the Bradenton Times is extrememly informative .I found something new to me :

The shooter had an accomplice... Direct quote " The killer loaded his bike into the trunk of a Ford LTD,with a FL license plate, and an unidentified driver. The men vanished ."

Well... that means we can probably strike a lone psycho off our list. And it raises some inetesting points... Could one reason for using the bike be that he didn't have a D/L ? Or. had his D/L been suspended ? Maybe he was a foreign national,and could not get a valid license. .. I cannot find any description of the driver at all...

I found it quite odd that Barrows, who spoke better Spanish than English,could identify a New England accent. Something strange about that,IMO

Possible reasons for choosing to do the murder on Anna Maria : no one knew the killer and the driver there. There was way less chance that the victim(s) would survive too, because no large hospital with a trauma room was close by...

Also in the article, I learned that Juan Dumois had actually sponsored one of the Mariel boats to bring Cubans to Florida. " Investigators learned from the U.S. Coast Guard that Dumois helped pay for a Mariel boat. But the boat was never functional ..... "

Wow... thanks again for this new info, it will keep me reading....
 
I wondered about the order of shooting and believe it could have been a practical matter as well. If I were going to shoot in that situation, I would have aimed first at Barrows, then the oldest child, the other child and lastly, the doctor, simply because he was driving the vehicle.

Also, in regards to Barrows noticing a New England accent: Having lived in this area of Florida, these accents are very common and easy to ID quickly. He could have been used to hearing them. Lots of full-time residents come from New England as do thousands more "snowbirds."

I find the Mariel boat lift connection interesting.
 
reportertype said:
I wondered about the order of shooting and believe it could have been a practical matter as well. If I were going to shoot in that situation, I would have aimed first at Barrows, then the oldest child, the other child and lastly, the doctor, simply because he was driving the vehicle.

Also, in regards to Barrows noticing a New England accent: Having lived in this area of Florida, these accents are very common and easy to ID quickly. He could have been used to hearing them. Lots of full-time residents come from New England as do thousands more "snowbirds."

I find the Mariel boat lift connection interesting.
Click to expand...

You make a good point about the shooting order.... I don't believe the New England accent ; I have relatives like Barrows who speak more Spanish than English. They have lived on the east coast all their lives, but I doubt they would know such an accent...

All of the Mariel people were fingerprinted when they were processed. I noticed that the Bradenton article ststed that there were about 77 unidentified prints on the car..... I wonder if the prints were checked with the Mariel prints ?

Many of the Mariel people were incarcerated,but still more slipped through unnoticed.

I believe it is possible that Juan Dumois was killed by someone from Mariel. May not have been political. It was more likely to be a grudge situation from someone back in Cuba.... It may have had to do with Dr. Dumois' escape in 1960. I'm doing more research alomg these lines.

All JMO
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 130 more.
Total: 2,669 (members: 131, guests: 2,538)

Online statistics

Members online
131
Guests online
2,538
Total visitors
2,669
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
600,789
Messages
18,113,604
Members
230,990
Latest member
DeeKay
Back
Top