Suspect in North Port homicide of adoptive parents captured after hours-long search

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North Port Police have a suspect in custody, who allegedly stabbed his adoptive parents, according to neighbors.

They captured 21-year-old Dima Tower near Interstate 75 and Laurel Road in Sarasota County after a seven- to eight-hour search in the woods.

He was wanted in connection with the deaths of two people killed in the 1200 block of Mallicoat Road in North Port, according to police.

Officers said they were called to the home shortly before midnight, Thursday, in reference to a disturbance. Officers confirmed that the two victims received multiple upper-body stab wounds.

Tower was confirmed by officers to have lived inside the home with the two victims. Neighbors said they adopted him years ago.

“Really nice, sweet, good people. The kind of people you really don’t see anymore in this day and age. It really would be just wholesome people around the holidays. It was cards and stuff like that for the last couple of years. And we’ve always let our kids play with their dog. And as far as their family,” said Jason Mcrae, their neighbor for two years.

Investigators said a man was observed entering a vehicle registered to Tower.

They pursued the vehicle, which headed north on I-75 where it was forced to a stop at mile marker 192, near Venice in Sarasota County.

It is believed that Tower was driving and once stopped, took off on foot into the nearby woods.

The community was first alerted to the situation through a reverse 911 call sent by the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office.

“What I can tell you is that it is a very disturbing scene when you have that amount of blood when people are stabbed like that. It is a very violent crime,” North Port Police public information officer Josh Taylor said.

A classmate of Tower’s who asked not to show her face said he would pick physical fights with students on the school bus.

“I just went to school with him high school with him. And like he was just like a creep. He would hang out in the woods,” she said. “Then they brought him over here. And then he started abusing his parents, doing crazy stuff.”

Court records show that Tower was arrested in 2020 for a physical fight with someone inside the victim’s home. The state attorney did not prosecute the case.

This is a developing story, and WINK News will update this article with more information when it becomes available.

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