Miami’s worst shootings left trails of blood and heartbreak. What led to the carnage?

Warning: Some of the photos in this article from original Miami Herald coverage are explicit and may be disturbing to some readers.

Why did so many people die? Why did the gunmen do what they did? Guns mixed with drugs or rage led to some of Miami-Dade County’s worst mass shootings.

Let’s look into the Miami Herald archives at the original coverage of some of the deadliest shootings over the past four decades. Here are the stories of the gunmen and the victims.

Bloody shootout in Kendall

Published April 12, 1986

Two FBI agents and two bank robbery suspects were killed and five more FBI men were wounded Friday morning when a wild shoot-out - the most devastating in FBI history - erupted on a residential street in Kendall.

More than 100 shots from automatic weapons, shotguns and pistols tore across the suburban Miami street just south of the Suniland Shopping Plaza. The shooting, which started at about 9:35 a.m., lasted more than five minutes.

Agents in front of a white house at 12201 SW 82nd Ave. tried to protect themselves with big white bulletproof bibs -- to no avail. When it was over, only one of eight FBI agents emerged unscathed.

Both robbers - who were driving a car they had stolen from a man they had robbed and shot at a West Dade rock pit last month - were sprawled in the street, dead.

So were the two agents who had chased the suspects up South Dixie Highway, behind the Dixie Belle shopping center and onto the narrow street of large, single-story homes.

The two slain agents were identified as Benjamin Grogan, 53, an FBI man for nearly 20 years, and Gerald Dove, 30, an agent since 1982.

Five more FBI agents who had responded almost immediately to a call for help were shot, three of them seriously injured. Agents John Hanlon, 48, who suffered a gunshot wound to his thigh, and Gordon McNeil, 43, shot in the chest, were at Baptist Hospital, where both were listed in serious condition.

At South Miami Hospital, agent Edmundo Mireles, 33, was in critical but stable condition with a bullet wound to his left forearm.

Two other agents - Richard Manauzzi, 43, and Gilbert Orrantia, 27 - were treated at Baptist for surface wounds and were released, the FBI said.

“This went down so fast it was unbelievable,” said witness Billie Holloway, who lives down the block from the crime scene. “We heard a few shots and then a little quiet. We went outside and heard the car crash. Then the shots just opened up.

“Living in Miami, you know, Miami Vice, I figured it was another drug bust,” Holloway said. “It’s Miami. You just try to stay alive.”

The FBI men were the 28th and 29th agents to be killed in the line of duty. The last time two FBI agents were killed in a single incident was in 1979.

In Washington, FBI Director William Webster called Friday the darkest day in the agency’s history. Never before had so many agents been killed or wounded in one incident.

“Miami has had a very difficult time -- a lot of different problems,” Webster said. But, he added, “I would certainly not characterize it as a place to stay away from.”

Along 82nd Avenue, there were bullet holes everywhere, in the sides of cars, in the concrete wall behind the shopping center.

“Phil Donahue had just come on when it happened,” said May Stemas, who lives nearby. “I thought it was a war.”

Using fingerprints, Metro detectives identified the robbers as William Matix, 34, and Michael Lee Platt, 32, both of South Dade. The men were suspects in two robberies of the Barnett Bank branch at 13593 South Dixie Highway earlier this year.

Property records show that Matix and Platt each owned a three-bedroom, two-bathroom $100,000 home. Matix’s has a patio, central air-conditioning and a six-foot-deep pool.

Police said Matix and Platt were members of the Rock Pit Gang, a small, ruthless group of criminals whose robberies have terrorized armored car drivers, bank customers and target shooters in Dade since at least October 1985.

Neither Matix nor Platt had ever been arrested either in Dade County or anywhere in the nation, police said late Friday night.

FBI Director Webster, asked whether the robbers are members of Aryan Nation, the neo-Nazi group responsible for robberies and shootings in Western states, said, “We don’t have enough information to make a definitive statement . . . but we are looking at this aspect very, very closely.”

A spokeswoman for the Aryan Church of Jesus Christ Christian in Hayden Lake, Idaho - sometimes referred to as the Aryan Nation - said neither Matix nor Platt are listed on the group’s membership rolls.

On Jan. 10, Matix and Platt are believed to have shot a Brink’s guard, Ernesto Maranje, at the Barnett branch. Left for dead, Maranje is recovering from the wounds. Both times they hit Barnett, the robbers escaped in a gold Monte Carlo.

Friday night, Metro police were searching for another stolen vehicle, a white 1984 Ford 150 pickup, license tag 538CUW. The pickup, like the Monte Carlo driven by the slain robbers, was stolen by members of the Rock Pit Gang.

According to police and witnesses, this is what happened:

FBI agents - part of a joint FBI-Metro police investigation of bank and armored car robberies - staked out several South Dade banks Friday morning, expecting members of the Rock Pit Gang to rob one. The gang liked to hit banks on Fridays, said Joseph Corless, special agent in charge of the Miami FBI office.

Agents Grogan and Dove saw a dark Chevrolet Monte Carlo pass by the bank they were watching several times.

Suspicious, they fell in behind the car and followed. One of the agents realized that the Monte Carlo was stolen from the victim of the March 12 robbery at a rock pit at SW 16th Street and 157th Avenue.

They checked records and confirmed that the Monte Carlo belonged to the rock pit victim, Jose Collazo. The FBI had its men.

The agents chased the Monte Carlo north on South Dixie Highway between SW 132nd and 134th streets.

“The agents called for help, for assistance and sometime after they felt they had sufficient backup they attempted to make the arrest,” Corless said.

After radioing for help, the two agents chased the suspects’ car north, zigzagging on side streets, then heading north onto SW 82nd Avenue. Several witnesses said they heard volleys of gunfire as the cars zoomed up the street.

As the Monte Carlo reached SW 122nd Street, the suspects saw another FBI vehicle, a gray car, coming at them from the north. Surrounded, the men panicked and slammed into a black olive tree in front of the house at 12201 SW 82nd Ave.

As the car stopped, the suspects jumped out and opened fire with .223-caliber automatic weapons.

The two FBI agents who had originally spotted the pair had pulled their cream-colored Buick in behind the Monte Carlo. They died getting out of their cars.

Witness Pam Johnson said she saw a man dressed in olive fatigues, apparently one of the suspects, run across a lawn holding a weapon “like a submachine gun. Then he just started firing. The other guys behind the car started shooting at him, and then it was a gun battle.”

Johnson, who was working at a gallery across the street from the shoot-out, said she saw two FBI cars crash, ending up in a V-formation behind the robbers’ car. When she saw one of the robbers coming toward her with an automatic weapon, Johnson ducked behind her turquoise 1973 BMW.

“I’ve never seen gunfire before,” she said. “I’ve never seen men die. At first I didn’t believe it. I’ve been so television-conditioned that I didn’t know what danger I was in. And then it hit me. I thought, My God, I’m ducking behind my car for my life.

“My husband came 15 or 20 minutes after it happened, and he said, ‘That’s it. It’s time to get out of Miami.’ “

FBI agents across the street from the robbers tried to hide behind cars and white bulletproof shields. At least two FBI agents held their fire to let motorists pass by; the suspects showed no such courtesy.

“I heard an automobile crash, then I heard light gunfire,” said Bob Stebbins, who lives three doors from the shoot-out and was working on the tulips in his garden when he heard the crash. “I saw somebody sitting behind a car with a gun. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I saw the guy (an agent) get hit, in the street. He was like a beached whale. He rolled back and started flopping back and forth. God, it was awful.”

Stebbins saw another agent shot: “He just went down like a jackknife -- boom. He was still alive and he kept popping up and firing, going down again, popping up and firing.

“It looked like a visit to Tamiami Gun Shop,” Stebbins said. “When you look at what these robbers had in the way of guns, I feel that our law enforcement officers are at a tremendous disadvantage. Geez, they could have taken Fort Knox with what they had.”

Rescue units began arriving at 9:42. An air rescue helicopter arrived at 9:51 and took two of the seriously injured agents to Baptist Hospital.

Throughout the shoot-out, girls at the Momentum School of Dance, separated from the bloody scene only by two concrete walls, kept going through their ballet steps, smiling into the mirrors along the wall.

Outside, witnesses yelled to customers driving out of the Farm Store three doors away from the shoot-out.

Mass shooting at a Hialeah apartment

Published July 28, 2013

Six neighbors did routine, mundane things Friday evening in Hialeah. A father parked his car after his son’s boxing practice. A family hung out inside their apartment. A husband and wife, both building managers, knocked on a tenant’s door.

At some point, the tenant pulled out a 9mm pistol.

By the end of the night, the six neighbors were dead. So was the gunman, Pedro Alberto Vargas, 42, killed by a SWAT team that stormed the apartment where for hours he kept two more neighbors hostage.

These are the victims’ stories:

Samira and Italo Pisciotti

The first to die were Italo and Samira Pisciotti, the husband and wife who managed the building at 1485 W. 46th St., where Vargas and his mother, Esperanza Patterson, were tenants of apartment 408.

After an apparent dispute, Vargas fired about 15 to 20 shots, killing 79-year-old Italo and 69-year-old Samira.

Their daughter Shamira, who lives in another unit in the building, said her parents were babysitting their 9-year-old granddaughter when the shooting began.

“I saw my mother’s dead body,” Shamira Pisciotti said. “She died the moment she was shot, but it looks like my dad was still alive after he was shot.”

Their granddaughter remained in the Pisciottis’ apartment, “waiting for them to come back,” said Carlos Almandoz, Shamira Pisciotti’s boyfriend and the girl’s father.

“They were terrific grandparents,” he added. “They had an excellent relationship with my children. They took care of them while we worked.”

The Pisciottis had come to the United States from Colombia. They had managed the building for 20 years and were a month away from celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, Almandoz said. They had never mentioned anything about problems with any building tenants.

Pedro Perez, a tenant in the building, described Italo Pisciotti as being, at times, confrontational when dealing with his tenants.

There were loud words exchanged in the halls sometimes, he said.

By contrast, first-floor tenant Gerardo Peraza said the Pisciottis were very cordial and easy to talk to.

Carlos Gavilanes

From his fourth-floor balcony, Vargas continued shooting. A bullet hit 33-year-old Carlos Gavilanes, who was walking into his apartment complex across the street with his son, whom he had just picked up from boxing practice.

“Run! Run! Run!” Gavilanes shouted to 9-year-old Carlos, according to the boy’s mother and Gavilanes’ longtime girlfriend, Jennifer Kharrazian. A bullet had already shattered the front door of the building at 1480 W 46th St., she said.

Once he realized he had been shot, Gavilanes stumbled, trying to feel his way along the wall, his son told Kharrazian. Then he fell to the ground.

“My son was screaming his name, and he collapsed, and my son was over his body,” Kharrazian said, tears falling.

She raced downstairs from their apartment, she said, yelling for paramedics. Two neighbors tried to resuscitate Gavilanes, giving him CPR. When the paramedics arrived, they tried to revive him, Kharrazian said.

“He died,” she said. “He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

With Vargas still on the loose, police didn’t let Kharrazian out of the building to meet her mother-in-law, who had raced to Hialeah after receiving an anguished call from Kharrazian after the shooting. Kharrazian holed up for hours, until nearly 2 a.m., in a windowless bathroom in her apartment with the couple’s son and 2-year-old daughter, Victoria.

Gavilanes, who hailed from an Ecuadorean family, grew up in New York. He moved to Miami 11 years ago, Kharrazian said, after meeting her through mutual friends on South Beach and falling in love. Interested in fashion, Gavilanes sold shoes at Nordstrom, learning the retail side of the business after beginning as a wholesaler, Kharrazian said.

The couple hadn’t gotten married, but in an interview with the Miami Herald, she referred to him as her husband. So did Gavilanes’ mother, Cynthia Ontiveros of Pembroke Pines.

Gavilanes planned to start his own shoe business with his father in August, the women said. The young family intended to leave Hialeah soon.

“They were going to move - God willing, here, to Pembroke Pines,” Ontiveros said in Spanish.

Then, she added: “Such a senseless death.”

Priscilla Perez, Merly Niebles and Patricio Simono

Seventeen-year-old Priscilla Perez sought cover in a bathtub when Vargas’ shooting spree began.

But that was not enough to save her.

Vargas made his way to apartment 304, where Priscilla lived with her mother, Merly Niebles, 51.

He shot the two women dead, along with a man, 64-year-old Patricio Simono, believed to be Niebles’ boyfriend.

Priscilla worked part-time at Lyn’s Furniture in Opa-locka, where co-workers grew concerned Saturday morning when she didn’t report to the store, missing their usual breakfast together.

“We checked on her and found out about this horrible, horrible tragedy,” said Catalina Vasquez, whose husband worked with Priscilla.

Vasquez described Priscilla as close to her mother, whom the girl tried to help financially.

“She was a lovely, sweet young girl, a very hard worker and very responsible,” Vasquez said. “She babysat for my kids, and I trusted her with them.”

Ivette Torre, another employee, referred to Priscilla as her “surrogate daughter,” and added: “We’re very affected by her death.”

Alberto Martinez, who said he was a cousin of the family, went to the crime scene carrying photos of Priscilla and Niebles. “I ... found out in the morning when the detectives called,” he said in Spanish.

A few men who knew Simono chatted at a liquor store in the shopping center behind the apartment complex Saturday afternoon, remembering him as a friendly man who frequented the store.

“It’s a shame,” said Marino Nazco, 70, owner of Papi Liquor and Food Store.

Priscilla’s paternal grandparents, Julian and Gladys Perez of North Miami Beach, learned of their granddaughter’s death from a Miami Herald reporter who telephoned them Saturday afternoon.

“Oh my God,” a stricken Gladys Perez cried out in Spanish, in disbelief that Vargas had also killed Niebles and Simono.

Julian Perez said their son, also named Julian, long ago split from Niebles. The younger Julian Perez is a doctor in the Perezes’ native Dominican Republic, his father said.

The older Julian Perez said Niebles was originally from Colombia.

“She was good people. She was very wholesome,” he said.

The grandparents had lost touch with their former daughter-in-law, he added, but their granddaughter telephoned them on occasion.

“She was a good girl,” her grandfather said. “Very calm.”

Miami Herald staff writers Joey Flechas, Glenda Ortega, Charles Rabin and Luisa Yanez, and El Nuevo Herald staff writer María Pérez contributed to this report.

Witnesses chase and kill gunman

Published Aug. 21, 1982

A psychiatrically troubled Dade County schoolteacher, vowing to “shoot everybody” over a $20 welding bill, did just that Friday.

When Carl R. Brown, 51, pedaled away on a bicycle minutes later, he left eight men and women dead and three others wounded at Bob Moore’s Welding and Machine Service, 3147 NW North River Dr.

Seven blocks away, near Miami Jai-Alai, the gunman was killed when an outraged motorist who knew the victims deliberately crushed Brown against a concrete light pole with his car.

The schoolteacher died sprawled at the side of the road, his newly purchased .12-gauge shotgun nearby, his pockets full of red buckshot. The rampage is the deadliest mass murder in Dade history.

Most of the victims were strangers to Brown, who, until February, taught American history at Drew Middle School. He had been forced out of his teaching job because of psychiatric problems, school officials said.

“I’m not surprised,” said Hialeah Junior High teacher Arlene Rothenberg, who knew Brown for nearly 20 years.

“He hated everybody. He was a bigot. He should not have been in a classroom. His problems were something that should have been caught a long time ago.”

Brown was a dissatisfied customer who complained Thursday about the bill on a repair job on a lawn mower engine. He cursed and made threats.

“I would like to kill the SOB Americans and you too.” he told welder Jorge Castellanos. “They have better men in Russia.”

Brown, Castellanos said Friday, seemed to be speaking in a Russian accent. Neighbors say Brown recently announced he was “going to Russia, that things would be better in Russia.”

Employers at the welding shop did not take the threats seriously.

Wearing a floppy straw hat and riding his bicycle, Brown returned there shortly before 11 a.m. Friday after buying a Mossberg 500, a shotgun with a 20-inch barrel capable of firing eight shells by pump action, dubbed “The Persuader” by its manufacturer.

Although there’s no waiting period for buying a shotgun, police said this particular model had no sporting uses and is considered a riot gun.

Brown killed owner Bob Moore’s mother, Ernestine Moore, 67; his uncle, Mangum Moore, 78, the bookkeeper; Carl Lee, 47, the manager; Martha Steelman, 29, a secretary; Lonie Jeffries, 53, a crane operator; Juan Trespalacios, 38, a machinist; Pedro Vasques, 44, the shop foreman; and Nelson Barrios, 46, a welder.

The welder whose work infuriated the gunman escaped unhurt. When the gunman announced he was going to shoot everybody, “I ran,” Castellanos said.

Three wounded employees, Carlos Vazquez, 42, a machinist; his son Carlos Vazquez, 17, a helper; and Eduardo Lima, 30, a machinist, also ran for their lives as the gunman pedaled away “slowly, like he was taking a Sunday ride,” a witness said.

Crane operator Curtis Edwards, 52, was on the job when he heard the shots.

“I saw everybody running. Then I saw Nelson, lying there dead. I walked into the welding shop. Pedro was dead in his office. I went into the machine shop and there was another guy dead on the floor. I saw my brother-in-law, Carl Lee, sitting there dead in his chair and I didn’t go any further.”

Lee was a father of three, and a grandfather.

Ramon Montero, 52, was working on a machine when he heard a shot, turned and saw the gunman shoot Juan Trespalacious, who was working next to him.

“He shot at me, but didn’t hit me,” Montero said. “I ran like an arrow.” He fled to the back of the building and hid in an upstairs room. It saved his life.

Passing motorist Mac Edwards heard a shotgun blast just before he saw the three wounded employees fleeing in panic.

They jumped into his car as he slowed for a traffic light.

“Get out of here. Get out of here.” they screamed. “A guy with a shotgun is going crazy out there. Get us out of here, quick.”

Two of the bleeding men in his car were screaming in pain, the third was sobbing.

Edwards drove them to the safety of a Shell station a mile away, at NW 36th Street and LeJeune Road, and dialed 911.

All three were taken to Hialeah Hospital and were listed in stable condition.

Rufus Nelson, 51, works at General Metals, across the street from the murder scene. He heard a blast, then “eight or nine more.”

He stepped outside and saw a Moore employe “lying outside. He was shot in the head and the back. He was trying to turn over. It looked like there were three holes in him.”

The gunman, the weapon slung over his shoulder by a strap, was already pedaling north.

Nelson stepped cautiously into the welding shop, seeking more survivors.

He found none.

“They were all dead ... so fast,” he said.

“A man named Pedro was on the floor in the office. A fat guy who ran the place was sitting up in his chair. Dead. It looked like he was shot in the forehead. His face was all bleeding.

“A woman wearing white slacks was lying on her side behind her desk. It looked like she had been typing. All her papers were scattered around on the floor.”

Dazed at the carnage, Nelson stumbled into another door.

“A man was lying on the floor with a hole in his head and his brains coming out. His arm was shot off. Only a little piece of skin held it together.

“I looked in the back room and another one was lying on the floor, face down. He had on a white shirt and a green work uniform. He was dead.”

Trembling and faint, Nelson rushed back across the street to tell his employers that no one inside was left alive.

“I was so frightened,” he said. “I never saw anything like that before.”

A frantic General Metals employe ran to All Florida Metals, a block away.

“He was in hysterics,” owner Mike Kram said.

“There’s a massacre down at Bob Moore’s.” the man cried, asking to use the telephone. As he dialed 911, Kram dashed toward the welding shop.

He met General Metals employe Ernie Hammett, who was frantically trying to flag down cars. Hammett told him six to eight people were dead at Moore’s.

They ran back to Kram’s 1981 Lincoln Continental and drove off in pursuit of the gunman. As they came close to the bicyclist, Kram fired a warning shot to stop him. It did not.

“We were about 15 feet from him,” Hammett said, “and Mark said, ‘I’m going to hit him.’ “

Kram’s car was up close to the bicyclist’s rear tire, he said, when “he saw me and reached for his shotgun.

“Out of reaction — I just ran directly at him.”

The bicycle was hurled against the pole.

Two hundred yards away, Kram stopped and waved down a passing off-duty police officer. Police said no charges would be filed against Kram.

At the murder scene, a welding shop customer, Fred Polis, wept. “They were the loveliest people,” he said. “It’s tragic, it’s so tragic.”

Brown, who apparently died instantly, taught social studies and history at Hialeah Junior High School until last year when he was transferred to Drew.

“It was pretty obvious he had problems,” said Drew vice principal Donald Fussell. “He was relieved of his responsibilities around February 1 and put on a medical leave.

“I would hope that he was under psychiatric care.”

He called Brown “extremely passive in his dealings with kids and everyone else. Everybody knew that he was ill, but not to what extent.”

Thanksgiving massacre

Published Jan. 4, 2010

Paul Michael Merhige of Miami, accused of killing four relatives Thanksgiving night in Palm Beach County, was tapping the keyboard of a computer in a Keys motel room late Saturday when police officers burst through the door and took him into custody, bringing a dramatic end to the 38-day hunt for a suspected killer, authorities said.

Left behind in the room: a noose and three tanks of helium hooked up to a plastic bag.

“It looked like he was trying to kill himself,” said Paul Pfaff, a co-owner of the Edgewater Lodge on Long Key.

By Sunday morning, the 35-year-old fugitive was held in isolation in the mental health unit of the Palm Beach County Jail, awaiting his next court appearance Feb. 1. Sunday, he was ordered held without bond, accused of four counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and various weapons offenses.

His arrest just before 11 p.m. Saturday marked the end of an intense manhunt by Palm Beach County and federal authorities, who received the crucial tip from Pfaff earlier that night.

The break came at about 6 p.m. Pfaff was watching television and caught a preview of a story about the Thanksgiving murders coming up on the Fox television show America’s Most Wanted.

When Pfaff saw Merhige’s photo on the screen, he said he realized: “That’s him. He was living like a hermit and had put a tarp over his car. I just put two and two together.”

Melinda Stewart, the motel’s other co-owner, called America’s Most Wanted and said she was confident that a man matching Merhige’s description, who went by the name “John Baca,” had checked into the lodge on Dec. 2. The motel is along an isolated stretch of U.S. 1 at Mile Marker 65.5.

With a detailed description of the motel’s layout, authorities carefully surrounded the main building because they had information that Merhige was armed with a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight.

It was not clear Sunday whether Merhige had weapons with him. Authorities subdued him with a Taser and took him into custody without incident.

During his stay at the Edgewater, Merhige apparently tried to change his appearance by shaving his head and growing a beard. He kept to himself, rarely leaving the $69-a-night efficiency, for which he paid cash in advance.

Merhige told the motel owners he would clean his room himself but insisted he needed Internet access. Reportedly suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder, he washed his clothes constantly in the hotel’s laundry room, The Palm Beach Post reported.

“I knocked on his door about three days ago, just to make sure he was alive,” Pfaff said.

Stewart said the man was driving a blue Toyota Camry - the same type of vehicle that police said Merhige had driven the night of the murders. She gave authorities its license tag number.

“I told them I was sure it was him,” Stewart said. “And while I was on the phone, Paul was yelling in the background, ‘Come get him now!’ He was positive, too.”

The U.S. Marshals Service ran the tag number and learned it was registered to one of Merhige’s previous vehicles -- a 1991 Lexus that he owned in 2006.

“[We] knew this was a good tip,” Marshals Service Deputy Barry Golden said in a statement.

The Marshals Service and members of the Florida Regional Fugitives Task Force moved in about 9 p.m. -- the same time America’s Most Wanted was airing. Merhige was staying in Room 14.

As they prepared to confront Merhige, authorities evacuated guests from the main building, including a family with four children in Room 15, and Pfaff’s and Stewart’s adult daughter and her dog in Room 13.

When authorities burst in, Merhige was in front of a computer.

In Palm Beach County court documents, Merhige said he was penniless but for $900 in monthly federal benefits. Jail records listed his address as 3590 Coral Way, Apt. 605, Miami.

Jim Sitton, the father of 6-year-old Makayla Sitton, one of the murder victims, said he was relieved to hear of Merhige’s arrest. “I’m elated the monster is in the cage. We don’t have to worry about him killing my wife or coming back for my father-in-law. It doesn’t bring my daughter back, but at least this chapter is over,” he told The Palm Beach Post.

Police say Merhige shot and killed his 33-year-old twin sisters, Carla Merhige and Lisa Knight, both of Miami, his aunt Raymonde Joseph, 76, and his 6-year-old cousin Makayla. Authorities said Knight was pregnant. The shooter also injured two others, including Patrick Knight, Lisa Knight’s husband, police said.

Paul Merhige had been at the Sitton home in Jupiter, north of West Palm Beach, where 17 relatives were celebrating the holiday. Makayla Sitton had recited Psalm 100 from memory and the twins had sung Via de la Rosa.

In recounting the incident to the news media at the time, Jim Sitton said the evening was coming to an end and the family members were saying their goodbyes when Merhige left through the front door, went to his car, returned through the back door and opened fire.

Sitton heard gunshots and saw Carla Merhige - who was at the front of the house - drop to the floor. Sitton ran out the back door, thinking the shots were coming from the front of the house and that he was being chased by an unseen gunman.

Sitton heard gunshots inside the house, where his daughter was in bed.

“I came in the front door and he was gone, and she was dead,” Sitton said.

Merhige became the subject of a massive manhunt from Miami -- where witnesses thought they spotted him Dec. 2 - to Michigan. It included billboards, wanted posters in three languages and a $100,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

It was unclear what happened to send Paul Merhige on the rampage, but he and Carla Merhige had previously gone to court in connection with accusations of domestic violence, records show.

In 2006, Carla Merhige so feared her brother could turn violent that she asked a Miami-Dade judge to keep him away.

In her request for a restraining order, Carla Merhige said her brother had threatened to kill her and himself, and that he refused to take medication for an unnamed mental illness.

Police said Sunday that Merhige took numerous medications, including Ativan, which is used to treat anxiety disorders.

Carla Merhige said her brother told her, “I’m going to slit your throat” and “this time I’m not going to go by myself,” referring to a recent suicide attempt, according to court documents.

Three weeks later, she later withdrew her request for the restraining order.

Eight years earlier, Paul Merhige had sought similar protection from his sister, but dropped the request five weeks later.

At Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church on Coral Way in Miami, where Merhige’s twin sisters sang, the Rev. Elie Mikhael asked his church members to keep the parents of Paul Merhige in their prayers. The parents and their grief were now his main concern, he said.

“Can you imagine yourself, being a mother or a father, sitting in a courthouse saying, ‘This is my son who killed my daughters?’ “

Horror at a birthday party

Published July 7, 2009

Bright pink, blue and green balloons welcomed hundreds of young adults to the birthday party.

They sipped drinks and danced as the DJ spun rap music. The celebration spilled onto Northwest Fifth Avenue, where it looked more like a parade.

Then the shooting started.

Bullets fired from high-powered weapons sprayed the crowd. Witnesses and police said the shooting, which began about 12:45 a.m. Monday, lasted several minutes and stretched over several blocks as the shooters took off.

Twelve people were shot, three of them injured critically, police said. In addition, a woman was hit by a car as she tried to run.

Police think the shooters - at least three men dressed in black -- had a specific target, but would not say who it was. Miami Police Chief John Timoney said that person was not shot.

He was interviewed by detectives Monday. Police said they would not speculate on a motive for the shooting. By late Monday, no arrests had been made.

Friends said the party was to celebrate Lawrence Smith’s 20th birthday. He had advertised it on MySpace.

People started arriving around 7 p.m. Sunday, though the crowds weren’t large until later.

One of those injured was Michelle Coleman, 23, a business administration student at Florida A&M University, her family said.

“She’s not going to make it,” said her uncle, Larry Coleman, as he walked out of the Ryder Trauma Center on Monday morning.

Michelle was shot in the chest, kidney and liver, he said. Doctors told him her chances of survival were slim.

Family members said another victim in critical condition was Anthony Smith, 17, a Booker T. Washington High School student and linebacker on its football team. He was shot in the chest and underwent several operations Monday at the trauma center, where doctors worked on his lungs and put him on a ventilator.

His aunt, Tomisha Michel, fears he may never play again - and might die in the coming days. Either way, she lamented, he will end up as a statistic despite all of his mother’s efforts to keep him from becoming a victim of Miami’s violent streets.

“He might end up as a casualty,” she said, angrily. “Another death this year.”

Willie L. Williams, the neighborhood barber and the pastor at Greater Mercy Missionary Baptist Church, prayed with the boy’s teammates, who wept during practice Monday morning.

Police did not confirm the identities of the wounded or release the name of the third person in critical condition.

This was the second mass shooting in Miami in six months.

In January, gunmen opened fire on a Liberty City craps game, killing two teens and wounding seven others.

Monday’s shootings took place near 527 NW Fifth St. Police, neighbors and witnesses provided this account of what happened:

The party started in a cul-de-sac in a public housing development that doesn’t “have a history of violence or any other police issues,” Timoney said.

About 10 p.m., police were called when the crowd grew large. Officers told them to turn down the music. After police left, the crowd swelled further.

Kedricka Hughes, a 16-year-old who attended the party, said there was a peaceful atmosphere all evening. She said about 200 people were there.

Willie Calhoun, 25, said he saw a man wearing a black hoodie partly wrapped around his face walking down the street. The man held an AK-47 assault rifle at his side for several minutes, as if he were looking for someone, Calhoun said.

“He turned and started shooting,” Calhoun said. He said he was with about three other people who started shooting.

Partygoers in the crowd pulled guns in response, he said.

“It turned into the O.K. Corral,” he said.

A 19-year-old woman, who declined to give her name, said she saw a man in a white T-shirt and jeans light a firecracker. Another man, possibly in his 20s, also was holding an assault rifle, she said.

People were screaming and crying, running in different directions as bullets sprayed the crowd from different angles.

Barking dogs and bursts of gunfire alerted Rose Godbolt McFarlane to the shooting. Several kids ran to her porch, begging to come in.

“They rushed in, about eight kids, teenagers,” she said. “They said, ‘Thank you, thank you. The teens were crying, she said.

McFarlane then went outside and she said she held the hands of one of the shooting victims, who was bleeding and lying by a truck. She tried to calm him until rescue workers arrived.

“I said, ‘If you’re alert, squeeze my hand.’ He was struggling. I said, ‘God will give you a second chance.’ “

Miami firefighters arrived about 12:50 a.m., but had to set up far away and wait for police as gunshots continued to crack in the distance.

Throughout the night, victims showed up at local hospitals for treatment.

Evidence of the mayhem was everywhere. Yellow police tape roped off several blocks.

Bullet casings that littered the block led detectives to believe that at least one AK-47 and two 9mm pistols were used in the shootings, Timoney said. Other guns may have been used as well, he said.

Evidence suggests the shootings continued north of the original location, close to Northwest Sixth Street, where police believe there was another volley of gunfire.

At a morning news conference with Timoney, Mayor Manny Diaz called it “yet another senseless shooting in our community” and said he would continue to lobby against assault weapons.

Cheyanne Wimbley, 21, said she was inside her nearby home when she heard a large boom, followed by dozens of “rapid fire” shots.

“It’s devastating,” she said. “You can’t have fun in Overtown anymore. I don’t want to be here anymore.

Massacre at a restaurant

Published June 8, 2010

For Geraldo Regalado - half-brother of former New York Yankees pitcher Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez - it was obvious his young, pretty wife was moving on.

“I’m stupid because I had everything and I threw it away,” he wrote on the Facebook page of his wife, Liazan Molina, 24, whom he had brought to the United States from Cuba in 2007 and called “the love of my life.”

“My days have no sunshine; the nights have no stars,” he wrote a week ago.

Another posting on May 30: “If you ever need me, call me.”

By Sunday night, Regalado’s apparent resignation had turned into a rage that left five people dead, including himself.

Regalado, 38, showed up at Yoyito Cafe-Restaurant in Hialeah, just as his estranged wife was ending her waitress shift the second day on the job. Armed with a .45-caliber pistol that he owned, he pulled the trigger nine times, killing Molina, three co-workers and himself. He also wounded three others in a shooting spree that was described by witnesses as total mayhem.

“He came in running, like a crazy man . . . shooting everybody,” screamed one 911 caller. “He came in running and killing.”

Regalado seemed to have targeted his victims. All were women. Only one was not an employee of the popular restaurant, 495 E. 49th St., on one of the busiest corners in Hialeah.

He deliberately walked in the kitchen, started shooting quickly, at close range, police said.

“He looked at me, went right by me but didn’t shoot me,” a unidentified male employee said.

The shooting occurred in the kitchen, as the restaurant prepared to close.

Molina had just landed the job at Yoyito, after moving out of the home the couple shared.

In one bloody outburst, Regalado, an unemployed carpenter with no criminal record, turned into Hialeah’s worst mass murderer.

“We’ve never had this many people killed at one time. It’s a first for us,” said Hialeah police Sgt. Carl Zogby.

Within minutes after fleeing the restaurant in a white SUV, Regalado committed suicide, shooting himself in the head.

“He did not leave a suicide note,” Zogby said.

Loved ones and neighbors called the dead women, all mothers, hardworking and caring:

They were:

* Maysel Figueroa, 32, of Hialeah, who lived with her husband and their small son. She started work at Yoyito only a few days ago, after leaving a job at a discount store.

Late Sunday, Figueroa called her husband and said she would be home soon, the neighbor said. She didn’t arrive, so he went to look for her at the restaurant.

Lavina M. Fonseca, 47, lived with her daughter across the street from Figueroa. She previously lived in Cuba’s Guantánamo province and studied Spanish and Russian literature at the University of Havana. She came to South Florida less than a year ago. Fonseca daughter, Lexania Matos, 18, is a Hialeah High student.

Zaida Castillo, 56, of Hialeah, followed her only daughter, son-in-law and grandson from the rural Cuban town of Quivicán to the United States about six years ago. In Cuba, Castillo was a vet, treating chickens on a farm. She cooked in Yoyito’s kitchen and tried to support her elderly mother back in Cuba. Castillo planned to visit her mother in November.

Three other victims who remained hospitalized Monday night include:

Yasmin Dominguez, 38, believed to be Molina’s cousin, who was there to pick her up, or protect her from Regalado. She was the first to encounter Regalado outside. He shot her, then walked into Yoyito. She remains in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Ivet Coronado Fernandez, who came from Havana about four months ago, lived with her mother in Hialeah. She was shot twice. Coronado called her brother Felix Fuentes from the restaurant and told him she had been shot. Fuentes said Coronado underwent two operations but may lose her arm.

Mayra de la Caridad Lopez, 55, of Hialeah Gardens told her husband from her hospital bed Monday night she might have survived the massacre by diving under a metal table. She was washing pots and pans when she heard gunshots and screaming.

As Regalado entered and began shooting, De la Caridad Lopez dove for cover but was shot in the back.

It was supposed to be a happy day for her. After being unemployed for months, Sunday was her first day on the job at Yoyito’s.

Regalado’s half brother, “El Duque” Hernandez, said he was shattered by the tragedy and issued a statement from his home in Pinecrest.

“I’m searching for words but can’t find them,” said Hernandez, who has the same mother as Regalado. “My family is suffering, but I want foremost to offer our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved one in this tragedy. No one has the right to take anyone’s life. Only God.”

The couple’s relationship began in Havana when she was 18 and he was in his early 30s. Regalado told neighbors he had paid to bring Molina to America. Records show she received a Social Security card in 2007, the same year they married.

They had lived together for about four months in a small home in the 100 block of Northwest 48th Court off Flagler Street, neighbors said.

Regalado, who had been unemployed for several months, raised pigeons. The couple had two dogs.

But something happened to sever their relation. Facebook postings offer the best clue.

Regalado made numerous postings in an apparent attempt to win her back. She never responded.

Several weeks ago, she moved in with Dominguez, her cousin, neighbors said.

Neighbors said they had witnessed Regalado’s deterioration since Molina moved out. He stopped eating, going from 240 pounds to 205.

“He told me he was going to move out of the apartment, that he was very sad,” said neighbor Damaris Santana.

“He said he couldn’t stand to be in the house alone.”

But Regalado would not reveal to his neighbors why the couple broke up.

“He told us it was over typical marital problems,” Santana said.

911 transcript

Here’s a transcript of the 911 calls from Hialeah mass murder:

10:10 p.m. (Several calls come in to the same operator within 5:19 minutes): Caller: Some guy is shooting here at the Yoyito . . .

911: OK, what is happening, sir?

Caller: In the restaurant, some man shot a woman and he ran in and is shooting at everybody here.

911: He’s shooting? The man has a gun?

Caller: Yes, yes.

911: Is he white, mulatto or black?

Caller: Mulatto, mulatto. Hurry up. He’s like crazy.

911: Is he shooting right now?

Caller: Yes, yes!

911: How many shots, sir?

Caller: Please, how many? ... He’s still shooting.

911: Did he shoot at you?

Caller: At everyone here.

911: Stay on the line with me. Help is on the way. What is the man wearing?

Caller: I don’t know. I don’t know. 911:

Can you still see the man?

Caller: No, no!

911: Sir, help is on the way but I need more information. Listen.

Caller: I can’t, I can’t. I have to hang up.

Another call comes in:

Caller: Hurry, this is an emergency. A man went into the Yoyito restaurant and killed all the employees. Please, help. It’s urgent!

911: Ma’am did he leave or is he still there?

Caller: Nobody knows, ma’am. Please, all the employees are bleeding. They are dying, the employees are dying.

911: OK, police and fire rescue are en route.

10:11 p.m.:

Caller: Oh my God. They’ve killed everyone in the Yoyito restaurant. Run!

This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 1:12 PM.