Brother, uncle of slain Tamarac victims: ‘I wake up all-night long to this nightmare’
READ MORE
Amber Alert unravels triple murder in Tamarac
Nathan Alan Gingles is accused of abducting his 4-year-daughter and killing her mother, grandfather and a neighbor in Tamarac.
Expand All
Frank Ponzer has a simple question: How does a U.S. Army vet with two domestic violence restraining orders against him keep his job as a contractor with security clearance at the U.S. Southern Command in Doral?
The man in question is Nathan Alan Gingles, 43, who is accused of gunning down Frank’s niece Mary Gingles, 34; her father and Frank’s brother, David Ponzer, 64; and Andrew Ferrin, 36, a neighbor whose home Mary sought refuge in as Nathan hunted her down her last Sunday morning in a quiet Tamarac neighborhood, Broward Sheriff deputies say.
“How do you have a person in a position like Nathan Gingles was in before you vet him? He had a security clearance after the military disqualified him. And, the contractor hires him for the same job. How the [expletive] does that happen?” Ponzer, 60, said in an interview with the Miami Herald from his home in Colorado.
Ponzer also was not happy with the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which did not seize Nathan’s guns after a Broward judge ordered him to surrender his weapons in her Dec. 30 temporary restraining order.
Nathan owns 20 firearms, “most of which have silencers, and are semi-automatic, handguns and more sophisticated firearms,” according to a divorce petition Mary filed in Broward Circuit Court in February 2024, seeking an end to their six-year marriage.
READ MORE: ‘I am fearful for my life’: Slain wife of man who kidnapped daughter warned of danger
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony announced Wednesday that he suspended seven deputies with pay in connection to this case.
“It is clear... we fell short on this one,” the sheriff said at the news conference.
BSO deputies arrested Nathan Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in North Lauderdale; he’s been charged with the killings and kidnapping his 4-year-old daughter, Seraphine, who was found with Nathan at Walmart. Investigators said she witnessed the murders.
READ MORE: Abducted 4-year-old told investigators how Broward triple murder unfolded, records show
David Ponzer was shot in the head while drinking a cup of coffee on the back patio of the North Plum Bay Parkway home Mary lived with Seraphine. Mary witnessed her father’s murder and ran out of the house, frantically knocking on neighbors’ doors for someone to let her in, according to investigators.
Nathan Gingles, dressed in black with a shoeless Seraphine behind him, pursued his wife as she ran into Ferrin’s house across the street, according to Nathan’s arrest affidavit.
“The way that the woman was terrified and running and the way that he had this controlled, fast-style pace... You could feel the terror that was in this woman’s mind and heart,” said George David Jr., Ferrin’s uncle, who watched Ring camera footage from the home across the street where his nephew was living.
Inside the house, bullets from Nathan Gingles’ gun felled his wife and Ferrin. After deputies found their bodies around 6:30 a.m., BSO issued an Amber Alert for Seraphine.
READ MORE: Abducted child witnessed father gunning down mother, 2 others in Broward, deputies say
One of Mary’s sisters is trying to obtain custody of the little girl, Frank Ponzer said. The sister could not be reached by the Herald.
‘A complete nutcase’
The U.S. Army confirmed to the Herald that Nathan Gingles served in the Signal Corps between 2011 and 2019 – including a deployment to Afghanistan. But, the service declined to say whether he was honorably discharged when he left the Army at the rank of captain.
Frank Ponzer said Nathan left the Army after receiving a full disability diagnosis, leaving Ponzer to wonder how he landed a job with a defense contractor making more than $160,000 a year, according to Mary’s divorce petition.
“He wasn’t employable as a shoeshine boy at the airport because he is a complete nutcase,” Ponzer said. “Where is the list of people just like Nathan Gingles?”
Nathan was employed by General Dynamics Information Technology, a division of General Dynamics, the large military contractor based in Falls Church, Va., according to the divorce petition. He worked out of the U.S. Southern Command’s headquarters in Doral.
The Herald reached out to General Dynamics, but did not receive a response from the company.
READ MORE: ‘We fell short:’ Seven Broward Sheriff’s deputies suspended after Tamarac triple murder
Mary was also a veteran of the Army, who left the branch with the rank of captain in 2020, the military service confirmed.
BSO failures
Tony, the Broward sheriff, acknowledged there were failures by the law-enforcement agency.
“In the process of looking at the homicide, we had to open up an internal affairs investigation to identify any shortcomings that may have occurred in the investigative process from a patrol standpoint and within the detective bureau... out of Tamarac,” Tony said at Wednesday’s press conference.
“There will be people who lose their jobs over this,” he said.
Tony said his officers failed to do their due diligence when documenting and responding to domestic violence calls at the home that date back to last year. A Broward deputies’ union spokesman said Friday they’re awaiting the facts from BSO’s investigation.
Mary’s divorce petition states that Nathan is “ex-military and has high security clearance” and “seemed to be friendly with [BSO] officers.”
READ MORE: Community organizes vigil for mother, granddad and neighbor killed in Tamarac shootings
Tony said there had been a “robust amount” of calls to the house, numbering in the dozens, between October and December.
In October, Mary contacted the sheriff’s office when she discovered that Nathan had placed a tracker on her car, according to the petition she filed in December, seeking the restraining order against her husband, which Broward Circuit Court Judge Lauren Alperstein granted on Dec. 30.
In December, deputies responded to another call from Mary, who said her husband was threatening to kill her. During that exchange, deputies likely had enough evidence to have arrested Nathan after a more than 30-minute conversation with Mary, Tony said. They didn’t.
Court records also show that Mary feared for her life, obtaining restraining orders from him in February 2024, and again on Dec. 30.
‘I am fearful for my life’
“With Nathan’s violent history, his flagrant disregard for rules or laws, and his telling our daughter that he is going to kill me, I am fearful for my life...” Mary stated in the December court petition. “He has already taken steps to prepare to murder me, but is waiting for the opportune time.”
Before filing for the restraining order, Mary said she found a bag belonging to Nathan that contained gloves, plastic wrap, restraints and duct tape, among other items. She said in the petition that he also tampered with her security camera, making her feel unsafe in her Tamarac home.
Frank Ponzer said his brother never moved into his daughter’s home, but he stayed there several times recently for prolonged periods to protect her from Nathan.
“This wasn’t the first time he went down there to protect Mary,” Frank Ponzer told the Herald.
Frank said his brother stayed at the house a few months ago and wanted to stay, but Nathan told the landlord he wanted David out since he wasn’t on the lease. David did leave, but returned, fearing for his daughter’s safety.
“A few weeks ago, he told me he had to go back there to protect Mary,” Frank said.
Since the murders, Frank said he and the rest of the family are in a state of shock, anger and sadness.
“I can’t sleep at night. I wake up all-night long to this nightmare,” he said.
Miami Herald staff writers Devoun Cetoute, Grethel Aguila, Milena Malaver, Amanda Rosa and David J. Neal contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
.jpg)
