Martin County Sheriff William Snyder provided updates Monday on the drug-fueled attack of a woman and her sonearly Sunday morning.
Snyder identified the suspect as Nico Gallo, 19, who he says repeatedly told the homeowner he was on Flakka, but was in fact a controlled substance called Dibutylone, a psychedelic drug.
Listen to the victim's 911 call below:
Snyder says Gallo has no prior criminal history.
According to Snyder, Gallo first broke out a top pane of a window on the victim's home as he tried to force his way inside. The victim screamed at him to leave. Gallo then threw himself through the lower part of the window and grabbed the woman by the shoulders. Se was able to break free and ran to the back of the house.
Fearing for her and her son's safety, the woman grabbed an aluminum baseball bat and struck Gallo in the head repeatedly. An incident report shows the woman hit Gallo a dozen times.
The son was able to restrain Gallo until deputies arrived.
When they did arrive, Gallo fought with them. He was eventually transported to a hospital.
Snyder says Gallo is waking up now and will be charged with burglary and assault during the burglary. Snyder says he believes bond will be set at $300,000.
A Martin County Sheriff's Office spokesperson says detectives have an active warrant to arrest Gallo. They are waiting until he is released from the hospital to arrest him to keep taxpayers from having to pay his medical bills.
During the intial investigation, Martin County deputies interviewed the intruder's friend, who stated they had ingested methylone and acid. The friend took the deputies to a house on Normandy Avenue, where the remaining drugs were seized.
Residents there would not speak to the media Monday night.
According to Snyder, the friend told deputies that the drugs were purchased in Margate.
The family of Nico Gallo released the following statement Monday night:
We would like to start by expressing our sadness for the family that was hurt as a result of Nico's poor choices. He had a really difficult upbringing and came here recently with the goal of improving his life. Even though he has only been with us for a little over a month, he was already making great progress and making positive changes in his life. He was holding down two jobs and even got his driver's license.
He slipped up and made an extremely bad choice, which resulted in his hurting someone and almost killing himself.
That was not our intention in taking him in or his. Even though this was the first time he's ever been in trouble, he realizes that he needs help and will do whatever he needs to do to avoid this from ever happening again.
This is so against his nature. He would never intentionally hurt anyone and is having a hard time facing what actually happened. We are already seeking help from medical professionals to get him well and make sure that this will never happen again.
Again, we apologize profusely to our dear neighbors for unintentionally bringing this problem into our safe neighborhood.
We ask the media to kindly respect our privacy, as we deal with this matter.
