Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi everyone, it's Delia D'Ambra here, and I want to tell you about a podcast that's one of my personal favorites that I know you're going to love, too. Dark Down East. Hosted by my friend and fellow investigative journalist Kylie Lowe, Dark Down East dives into New England's most haunting true crime cases.
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There are so many episodes of Dark Down East already waiting for you and new episodes every Thursday. Find Dark Down East now wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the story I'm going to tell you today takes place on a sliver of land off the west coast of Florida called Anna Maria Island.
This geographic area isn't a national park or state park, per se, but it is a premier destination for tourists, boaters, vacationers, and beachcombers. The website for Ana Maria Island's Chamber of Commerce describes it as a piece of paradise and was once one of the Sunshine State's best-kept secrets.
It's covered in white sand beaches, tropical plants, beautiful natural wildlife, as well as restaurants, rental houses, and condos. But the reason I picked this case for this show is because, in my opinion, it's less about the recreation space and more about the recreationalists who are at the center of it.
People like you and me, they were wrapping up a day of being in the great outdoors when the unthinkable happened. An amenity the victims in this story used, and so many other island visitors use, is the Kingfish Boat Ramp, which is located in the city of Holmes Beach. The Anna Maria Islander reported that for a long time, the boat ramp was actually just part of unincorporated Manatee County.
But the city police department regularly patrolled it anyways to, I presume, make sure people weren't parking their vehicles and trailers there overnight or getting into trouble. Today, it is actually part of the city of Holmes Beach. The ramp bears the name kingfish as an ode to the species of mackerel that can be caught off its coastline.
According to the website visitflorida.com, kingfish are a prize game fish that prefer warmer waters. And if you're lucky enough to snag one of them, you'll notice right away that they have a habit of spinning, leaping, and making explosive movements in the water to try and get away.
The same thing could be said about the perpetrator in today's story, who, in quite an explosive and violent fashion, managed to outmaneuver a popular recreation space crawling with witnesses, as well as generations of law enforcement investigators. This is Park Predators.
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Chapter 2: What happened at the Kingfish Boat Ramp on Anna Maria Island in 1980?
When she got out to see what was going on, Annie told me that she asked a police officer if everyone inside the station wagon was okay, to which the officer didn't really give her a straight answer. Annie said he just spoke into his radio and notified another officer that family members had arrived on scene. Then he told Annie to leave and go straight to the hospital in Bradenton.
By that point, Juan Dumas, his two younger sons, and Annie's dad, Raymond, had already been transported, so they weren't physically still on scene. When the girls and their mothers arrived at the hospital, they were quickly ushered into a conference room and told that 46-year-old Juan, 13-year-old Eric, and 9-year-old Mark and Raymond had all been shot in the head.
Unfortunately, only 52-year-old Raymond would manage to survive the attack. He'd been shot in the back of his neck, but miraculously, the bullet had not severed any major organs or arteries. It was still lodged in his neck, though, and the surgeons decided to just leave it alone versus try to remove it because they were worried if they did try to take it out, Raymond could become paralyzed.
The news of the crime was both horrifying and confusing to Annie and her family members because she had literally just laid eyes on all the guys minutes before whatever happened to them went down. She recounted for me in our interview that trying to make sense of someone murdering her uncle and two of her young cousins and almost killing her father was impossible to do at that moment.
And if all of that wasn't shocking enough, the hits just kept coming when Annie and the rest of her family members learned that a man who lived at a condominium complex near the crime scene had also been attacked and killed, reportedly by the same gunman.
According to the coverage in this case and my interview with Annie, when paramedics and police officers arrived on scene shortly after the crash, they saw the Dumois' boat trailer and station wagon jackknifed on the north side of Manatee Avenue. First responders immediately observed a man behind the steering wheel with a fatal gunshot wound to his head.
Two young boys in the back seat who'd also been shot in their heads. And numerous bystanders gathered around the vehicles, caring for a man on the ground who was also bleeding from the back of his head.
A short distance away from the crash scene, there was another scene in a nearby Foodway grocery store parking lot that was swarming with bystanders who were tending to a 60-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Police quickly identified the fifth victim at the second crime scene as Home Speech resident Robert Matske.
Robert was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who lived at a condo across from where the Dumas station wagon and boat had jackknifed. According to what his relatives told authorities and later the press, Robert had witnessed the crash while doing yard work and immediately gone inside to tell his wife Mary to dial 911.
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Chapter 3: Who were the victims involved in the tragic incident?
Robert Matsky's wife told reporter Joanne Lehman that she refused to let what happened to her late husband make her bitter. During the first year of the investigation, she'd remained living at the condo her and Robert shared, and she'd gotten involved in lots of activities with friends and family. She regularly gathered with her and Robert's adult children and shared memories of his life.
She'd also met with Maria Dumois, Juan's widow, and shared stories of all the good times they'd had with their respective families on Ana Maria Island before the crime. Two months after the one-year anniversary, in October 1981, the Manatee County School Board voted to name a newly built transportation center in Robert's honor.
Before his death, he'd worked as the director of the district's custodial, maintenance, and transportation departments, so dedicating the space in his memory was certainly fitting. By the beginning of May 1982, the case was almost two years old and still languishing. And things were about to get even more challenging when investigators' star witness, Raymond Barrows, breathed his last.
In the world of true crime, the real story isn't always in the headlines. It's in the evidence. I'm Brandi Churchwell, host of 13th Jury Podcast, and I'm here to take you past the news cycle and straight into the courtroom. Every week, I'll break down the investigation, the prosecution, the defense, and everything that unfolds beyond the jury box.
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According to Raymond's daughter, Annie, and reporting by the Bradenton Herald, on May 6th, 1982, Raymond abruptly died from a heart attack. After he passed, his family made sure he underwent an autopsy. During that exam, the doctor removed the bullet that had been lodged in his neck since the day of the murders and gave it to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
And I presume they did this because it was likely still considered an important piece of physical evidence in the case. Around that same time, an investigator with FDLE told reporter Christopher Clark that authorities were looking into whether the head of a known hit squad, who is in Fort Lauderdale, could be linked to the unsolved murders. But it doesn't appear that lead went anywhere.
This hit squad leader, though, was believed to have ordered more than 100 professional killings and when he was arrested in June of 1982 in an unrelated situation in Broward County. That's when investigators decided maybe they should give him a closer look. But obviously trying to navigate the claims of a self-professed hit squad leader was tricky for authorities.
I mean, I guess there's only so much credibility you can give to a person like that. But the theory that the boat ramp murders were the result of some kind of mob hit seemed to endure over the years. The only problem was there were several aspects of the crime that didn't totally make sense with that theory.
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