Blood-soaked letter provides glimpse of motive in Florida Keys knife murder
A blood-soaked letter police found in the pocket of the teen accused in one of the most horrific homicides in recent Florida Keys memory provides a look into what motivated him to allegedly stab his little brother to death and severely wound his father inside their Islamorada townhome in early May.
The person accused in the crime, Daniel Weisberger, 17, wrote in the letter, which police found May 7, the day of the attack, that his 14-year-old brother helped his divorced parents “torture me” and “for that he must suffer like the rest and for that I free you from the vessel that makes you this way.”
To his father, Ariel Poholek, 43, the choice of words his oldest son used in the letter and the perceived street vernacular he wrote throughout the two-sided document demonstrate that Weisberger was in the throes of a full psychotic break when he drafted it.
“This is a kid who murdered his brother and had just tried to murder me, and he was in the worst psychological state of mind,” Polohek said Thursday.
The letter was made public last week by the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office as part of the discovery process.
Weisberger had been in and out of the juvenile justice system in the past two years, and Poholek said his son adopted a sort of gangland alter ego to survive in that atmosphere.
In the end, Weisberger viewed himself as a boy who grew up surrounded by poverty and violence. In reality, he was raised upper-middle class, first in Hobe Sound, then in Islamorada, in a world that valued extracurricular activities, community and education.
“He just developed this persona that became more and more prevalent,” Poholek said.
The Monroe County State Attorney’s Office charged Weisberger as an adult with murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and felony weapons possession.
Poholek holds his son responsible for killing his youngest son, Pascal-Rene Zue Weisberger. But he also blames years of mental and physical abuse he said Daniel and Pascal endured at the hands of their mother — abuse that he said included corporal punishment, withholding food and mind games to turn the boys against each other.
Poholek said Daniel received most of the direct abuse, which made him resentful toward Pascal.
Almost equally responsible, according to Poholek, is a juvenile justice system that failed to protect the boys from her and to get Daniel the mental health care he needed after he began running afoul of the law as a teen. This includes letting Daniel stay with his mother in the months leading up to the murder, years after she lost visitation rights with either child.
“Daniel’s responsibility falls way below these other people’s responsibility,” Poholek said. “I know some, in the backs of their minds, know that this is a reality.”
Daniel’s therapist diagnosed him with post traumatic stress disorder resulting from his childhood experiences, according to a report provided by his father.
Weisberger’s mother, Joceline Nguema, released a statement denying she abused her boys.
“I always imagined them one day saying they wanted to spend more time with their mom, and I never abused or neglected my children in any way,” Nguema said.
Poholek and Nguema, who met each other while in the Peace Corp in Gabon, Africa, in the early 2000s, divorced in 2006, the year Pascal was born. Poholek, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, received custody of the boys in 2008, and they moved to Islamorada in 2011.
Nguema had visitation rights, but after an incident at the Golden Glades Tri Rail station in 2013 where Poholek said his ex-wife hit the then 10-year-old Daniel, the boy did not agree to see her again until 2017.
A year later, an abusive incident that happened on a trip with his mother to Alabama left Pascal, who had autism, traumatized, Poholek said. Pascal asked his father never to allow Nguema to take him away on a custody trip again. By court order, she was only allowed supervised visits with her youngest son from then on.
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While in Islamorada, both boys were active in Boy Scouts, soccer and volunteerism. Both did well academically throughout elementary and middle school. Poholek was for the most part a single father, who was their scout troop leader, and he and the boys traveled often together.
The family was well-known and well-liked in the Upper Keys community.
But by high school, Daniel began acting out at home and getting into trouble in school. He was arrested several times and placed into Department of Juvenile Justice detention in both the Keys and Miami-Dade County.
This January, Poholek discovered Daniel had brought a gun home, and he called the police on his son. Daniel was placed in juvenile detention in Key West for 21 days. During this time, he and Nguema began speaking to each other, and she agreed to take Daniel to her Port St. Lucie home when he was released from custody. A judge allowed the arrangement.
The first few weeks were fine, but then Daniel began getting into trouble, and according to Poholek, Nguema would lock her son out of the house and deny him meals. She drove Daniel back to the Keys, but Department of Juvenile Justice officials told her he was her responsibility.
Nguema said she was forced to call the police on Daniel on March 15 for a violent incident, and he was arrested and placed on house arrest. She said she wanted to keep Daniel, but Poholek picked him up early the next day before a scheduled emergency hearing.
Poholek agreed to let Daniel stay with him and Pascal in their townhouse at Executive Bay Club.
Things went relatively smooth at first, but Daniel again began to act out, smoke marijuana and get into trouble with the law. He also had dropped out of school for about a year by now.
Around 4 a.m., May 7, Poholek woke up to Daniel stabbing him in the neck and choking him. Daniel told him that he had already killed Pascal. Poholek was able to stumble to a neighbor’s house for help.
A full-day manhunt ensued for Daniel, which included multiple police agencies. In the end, he was almost hiding in plain sight. He dashed out into the middle of traffic on U.S. 1 near his father’s house at mile marker 87 and was struck and seriously injured by a pickup truck.
After recovering in Jackson Memorial Hospital for a few weeks, Daniel was placed in an adult detention in Miami-Dade before being transferred to Monroe’s jail, where he remains.
Poholek, who police originally thought may not survive the attack, recovered. He said that if the juvenile justice system had not let Daniel go with Nguema, he feels his son would not have enacted his rampage.
“This so traumatized him that it pushed him over the edge,” he said.
In the letter Daniel wrote the day he allegedly killed Pascal, which contains little to no punctuation, he wrote both his parents should not have had children and that they took their frustrations with each other out on their children.
“Yall (sic) took always took yuh (sic) problems out on yuh kids and I always got the most of it but I was strong enough to make it this far to the starvation being left outside for dead the physical and verbal abuse,” Daniel wrote.
He said he spared Poholek’s life “cuz (sic) even tho (sic) I couldn’t see you was fake at the time you pretend to love me through the abuse and did have some real emotion unlike mom.”
Daniel said the only reason he didn’t kill Nguema is because “i understood why you are the way you are and cuz you made me and cuz I don’t put my hands on woman (sic).”
He seems to indicate in the letter that he did have plans to kill his mother if he escaped the Keys that day, writing, “but your time has also run out your full name is joceline avomo guema and can be collected yo rein (sic) is ova (sic).”
Poholek said Daniel calls him from jail up to three times a day. He said his son is remorseful and grieves for Pascal, although he’s convinced Daniel does not fully understand what happened at the same time.
“He prays to his brother every morning, and he hopes he’s in a place where he’s happy and forgives him,” Poholek said. “But, he doesn’t remember what happened that day. He doesn’t seem to dispute what happened, but he doesn’t remember it.”
This story was originally published July 16, 2020 at 6:48 PM.
