Florida Keys stabbing suspect charged as an adult for the murder of his brother
A Florida Keys teen who police say stabbed his brother to death and seriously wounded his father with the same knife was charged as an adult with murder Thursday.
Daniel Weisberger, 17, faces life in prison if convicted on either second-degree murder in the death of his brother, Pascal Weisberger, or first-degree attempted murder for the attack on his father, Ariel Poholek, 43.
The charges, as well as two more on aggravated battery and false imprisonment, were filed by the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office on Thursday morning. Prosecutors filed the charges with an information document, not a grand jury indictment.
A grand jury would be needed to charge Weisberger with first-degree murder, and jury trials and grand juries are on hold in the Keys because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Assistant State Attorney Gail Conolly said if more evidence emerges, prosecutors could convene a grand jury in the future and seek a first-degree murder indictment.
Under Florida law, because Weisberger is a minor and was when the alleged crime happened, a judge can sentence him to life, but not without the possibility of parole in his reasonable lifetime, Conolly said. This means that a judge would have to periodically check in on the case and review whether he should be eligible for supervised release.
Pascal Weisberger, 14, was stabbed to death inside the Executive Bay townhome he shared with his father and older brother early in the morning on May 7. Monroe County sheriff’s detectives say he was killed by Daniel Weisberger.
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The older brother attacked his father moments later, stabbing him multiple times in the neck, detectives say. He also choked his father and held him hostage for about two hours. Polohek, who was asleep before the attack, lost consciousness several times while being beaten, stabbed and strangled, waking up once to find his son was no longer in the room. That’s when he went to a neighbor’s home for help.
Police from the sheriff’s office as well as Miami-Dade County, Homestead, and several other agencies embarked on an all-day manhunt for the teen, mainly focusing on the area surrounding Executive Bay Club in Islamorada.
But, it turned out, he never went far. Around 7 p.m., he darted out into traffic on U.S. 1. After one car narrowly missed hitting him, he ran out in front of a pickup truck, which hit him.
He was seriously injured and flown to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he has been recovering under guard by juvenile justice officers ever since. Detectives say he was trying to commit suicide.
His family said he was expected to be released from the hospital to a criminal detention facility Thursday afternoon.
Despite Poholek’s injuries, he was released from the hospital at Jackson South Medical Center in Kendall after about a week. He was well enough by May 19 to greet mourners at Pascal’s viewing and to speak at his funeral.
Poholek said Thursday he believes his son should pay for his alleged crimes, but he also said he needs psychiatric help. Although Daniel had a long history with the juvenile justice system, Poholek said there was no indication he was going to kill his little brother that morning.
“Something snapped in his mind in the middle of the night,” he said.
Pascal’s death shook the Upper Florida Keys community, where he was a well-known student at Treasure Village Montessori School and a member of a local Boy Scout troop. Poholek is a scoutmaster, and both father and son wore their uniforms at the open-casket funeral service.
Daniel Weisberger was also a promising student and member of the scouts, but his family said early childhood trauma stemming from his parent’s difficult divorce and years of contentious custody disputes resulted in him getting into trouble with the law beginning in his high school years.
Many in the community have commented since the tragedy on Poholek’s devotion to his children. The single father is also a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Fisheries Service. He’s had custody of his children since 2008, and moved from Martin County to the Keys in 2011.
Poholek said his ex-wife was abusive to both boys and was the subject of several Department of Children and Family Services investigations. Multiple attempts to contact the boys’ mother, Joceline Nguema, through her attorney, have been unsuccessful.
DCF would not comment on the case, citing a Florida statute that states unless the cause of a child’s death was abuse or neglect, information about any investigation into the family is confidential.
“Therefore, if there were any investigations involving this family, related records would be exempt from disclosure,” DCF spokeswoman Beatriz Lopez said.
Poholek said the abuse included hitting Daniel with her hands and objects like belts and switches, making him do jumping jacks on hot pavement until his bare feet bled and sitting him down in front of an empty plate while the mother and Pascal ate.
According to Poholek, the abuse continued until October 2013, when he said his ex-wife beat Daniel at the Golden Glades train station after he refused to go with her on a custody visit. There was a witness who gave a statement to the police and testified during a hearing over the incident, Poholek said.
A judge mediated a deal where Nguema agreed not to see the boys for a year. She also agreed to a psychiatric evaluation, which Poholek said she never completed.
Daniel’s legal troubles in high school, which included smoking marijuana, taking psychedelic mushrooms and opioids, landed him in and out of juvenile justice and psychiatric treatment facilities, where he also suffered abuse at the hands of others in the programs, Poholek said.
While Poholek believes Daniel should have to answer for what police say he did to his younger brother, he also said he has post traumatic stress disorder as a result of his child abuse and now brain damage from getting hit by the pickup. He hopes he ends up in a long-term psychiatric facility and not in adult prison.
“Life with some type of possibility of parole is not appropriate for a child who has been put through this situation and has ongoing psychiatric and mental problems, and now brain damage,” Poholek said Thursday. “That’s not an appropriate outcome for him.”
Poholek has not spoken with his son, but he believes he feels remorse, otherwise, he would not have tried to commit suicide. He fears if Daniel is not closely monitored, he’ll try again.
“I have a lot of concern he might try to hurt himself again. He already tried to kill himself twice,” Poholek said. “The system has failed him his whole life, and now it’s doing it again.”
