Days after a man brutally killed his estranged wife, her father and neighbor in Tamarac in mid-February, the Broward Sheriff’s Office suspended multiple officers and ordered an investigation to identify failings in the agency’s response.
Roughly six months later, the agency completed its probe — firing eight deputies and disciplining 11, which included the demotion and firing of the captain who oversaw the Tamarac division.
WLRN obtained BSO’s 246-page internal affairs investigation into how deputies failed to help Mary Gingles, 34, who repeatedly sought help from Broward officers and warned of the growing danger of her husband, Nathan. He was charged with murder in the February 16 killings of Mary Gingles, her father David Ponzer, 64, and neighbor Andrew Ferrin, 36.
Nathan Gingles has pleaded not guilty.
BSO’s investigation, which the sheriff said took over 2,000 hours to complete, reveals the story of a woman whose repeated pleas for protection from the county’s biggest law enforcement agency were met with indifference and bureaucratic hurdles.
“We had multiple opportunities to protect Mary during the months preceding her death when she alerted us to the domestic violence she was experiencing,” Tony wrote in a statement on Sept. 12.
“The deputies and detectives assigned to investigate these cases failed their training and, ultimately, failed to handle Mary’s repeated cries for help with the urgency required,” he said.
The investigation also found issues in how officers responded to the active shooter threat; a pertinent finding since Sheriff Gregory Tony’s election in response to the massacre at a Parkland high school in 2018.
Here is a timeline based on what the internal investigation found, beginning in early February — a year before her fatal encounter with her estranged husband:
On Feb. 9, 2024, Mary Gingles requested BSO deputies come to her home in Tamarac to enforce a temporary restraining order against her husband. The order required Nathan Gingles to leave the house. Deputies confiscated “numerous firearms, rifles, suppressors, magazines, ammunition, and a license to carry,” according to the report.
On Feb. 10, 2024, BSO Deputy Daniel Lovallo assisted a Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) investigator, as a follow up to the restraining order.
Mary Gingles had said Nathan sang songs about killing her and made concerning statements, like “I want to taste the blood of the innocent.” She said Nathan abused his prescription drugs. She worried for her own safety and that of their four-year-old daughter.
Lovallo interviewed Mary, who told him that Nathan had been abusive a year prior, when he put her in a chokehold, dragged her upstairs and said he would kill her if she ever left him.
Lovallo tried to comfort Mary, who told this incident to the deputy through tears.
“Well, now we’re here,” the deputy said. “You’re safe. (Your) daughter is safe.”
“Hopefully, I mean who knows?” she responded. “Nathan Gingles is so much smarter than I am.”
During the internal affairs interview with BSO, Lovallo admitted he did not investigate what Mary told him as a separate domestic violence crime — something his supervisor later said he should have done.
According to Lovallo, the DCF investigator told him that Nathan denied the allegations of domestic violence.
“If one person says ‘no this didn’t happen’ and the other person says that this did happen, there’s no evidence, there’s no proof, there’s no anything. Lovallo said during his interview. “I still documented there was abuse.”
BSO brass later suspended Lovallo for 10 days for violating domestic violence policy.
On July 9, 2024, Mary agreed to dismiss the temporary restraining order against Nathan in exchange for exclusive possession of their Tamarac home, while they worked out a time-sharing agreement and their divorce case.
On Aug. 21, 2024, BSO released Nathan’s guns back to him as a result of the dismissed order.
On Oct. 29, 2024, Mary called the non-emergency line to report she found a tracker on her car and she believed Nathan put it there. Her divorce attorney advised her to check her car for tracking devices, and she asked BSO to collect it as evidence.
The on-duty police sergeant assigned a community service aide — a front desk worker who takes reports for minor crimes — to take Mary’s complaint. The aide interviewed Mary.
Afterwards, Mary asked to speak to a supervisor to ensure her domestic violence history was included, and the aide contacted supervisor Sgt. Travis Allen.
The aide told Mary that Allen, the on-duty sergeant, was busy. Allen did not follow up with Mary. The report was classified as informational and nobody picked up the tracker.
BSO later fired Allen for this and his role responding to the shooting.
On Nov. 5, 2024, Detective Sophie Riggs assigned the tracker case to a detective because it was improperly labeled and needed more investigation.
Riggs did not retrieve the tracker.
Detective Brittany King received the case.
King passed the case off to another deputy, Raul Ortiz, who was on “light duty” while recovering from an injury.
According to Ortiz, she asked him to close out the case and others which were considered as having no leads.
On Nov. 26, 2024, Ortiz wrote a report, stating that he attempted to call Mary Gingles at her landline, but the number was disconnected. He sent the report to a supervisor, Sgt. Devoune Williams.
On Nov. 27, 2024, Williams denied approval of the report — stating that trackers can be forensically analyzed and to talk to King.
Nobody had ever picked up the tracker.
BSO leadership later fired King and Williams. They disciplined Ortiz and Riggs.
On Dec. 27, 2024, Mary called 911 after she saw on her home security camera that her estranged husband snuck into her house and left a backpack.
The backpack had “weird” items like plastic wrap, zip tie handcuffs, rags and gloves.
On Dec. 29, 2024, BSO Deputy Daniel Munoz responded to Mary’s house for the coded “suspicious incident.” He interviewed Mary, learned about her past with Nathan, as well as the tracker and backpack.
Mary’s daughter told her that Nathan planned on killing her, Mary told the deputy.
“He is planning to murder me and he thinks he can get away with it somehow,” Mary told Munoz, according to the body camera footage.
Munoz did not call DCF, nor did he try to contact another detective about the case.
Munoz told BSO internal affairs he thought another detective would follow up and build a case against Nathan. He wrote a report.
Nobody collected the backpack.
Munoz was later fired.
On Dec. 30, 2024, Mary called BSO because she noticed her key fob was missing and she believed Nathan took it when he snuck into the house.
A deputy met with her and took a report.
King, Williams, Riggs and Allen were all informed of the missing key fob report, and later learned about the backpack, but did not take further action.
On the same day, Mary filed a petition for a domestic violence injunction at the county courthouse.
“I am fearful for my life and I think it is imminent that he will attempt to murder me,” she said. “I think it is likely that without a restraining order he will attempt this before the lease is up in February.”
The temporary protection injunction was granted and a Zoom hearing was set for a week later.
On Jan. 2, 2025, King and Detective Illany Ceballos met with Mary to take her statements on the tracker and backpack.
Neither picked up either item.
READ MORE: ‘Absolutely unacceptable’: BSO fires 6 more deputies, disciplines 11 others after Tamarac homicides
On Jan. 6, 2025, a deputy served the protection order on Nathan at his home in Lauderhill.
The deputy’s paperwork did not include any information about the prior injunction against Nathan where nearly 20 firearms were seized.
None of Nathan’s guns were seized this time because the restraining order did not ask deputies to do so this time around.
On Jan. 10, 2025, Mary called 911 to check on the status of her case and to check when deputies would pick up the backpack.
Riggs sent a follow up email to King to check on the case.
On Jan. 16, 2025, King called Mary to let her know she was working on the case and obtaining a search warrant.
The same day, King submitted a search warrant related to the tracker to the Broward State Attorney’s office.
On Jan. 23, 2025, a prosecutor denied the warrant and returned it to King, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence collected and included in the request to justify the warrant.
King revised the warrant with the corrections from prosecutor Dennis Siegel and sent it off.
“From January 23, 2025, until the date of the triple shooting [February 16, 2025], King advised that she did not follow up on the search warrant for the tracker,” the internal affairs report said.
It’s not clear from the report why the Broward State Attorney’s office did not act on the revised warrant.
On Feb. 16, 2025, at 5:39 a.m., Nathan drove to Mary’s house in Tamarac. Twenty minutes later, he snuck to the back of the house, shot her father Ponzer and chased Mary and their child out of the house, authorities said.
A struggle ensued between Mary and Nathan in the alley between houses.
At 6:01 a.m., a neighbor called 911 to report that he heard four shots ring out.
Within two minutes, Sgt. Allen and Deputy Lemar Blackwood are notified. Allen told deputies to meet at a rally point near the house, instead of the location of the shooting.
BSO policy requires deputies to prioritize saving lives by rushing an active shooter, rather than waiting to respond.
By 6:03 p.m., Blackwood and another deputy are waiting in their cars a few blocks away.
At 6:07 p.m., Mary fled to her neighbor’s house across the street and banged on the door for help. Nathan followed, with their four-year-old child, and pointed a gun at Mary.
By 6:08 p.m., she ran into Andrew Ferrin’s house. Nathan followed and killed both of them, according to BSO.
That same minute, a second 911 caller reported hearing gunshots and screaming.
By 6:12, Blackwood and four other deputies are waiting at the rally point.
Allen approached the house in his car and encountered a man and a small child walking in the road.
Allen called it out over the radio, confirmed with a dispatcher that a child was involved in this incident and watched them walk away.
Allen said he wasn’t scared to make contact with Nathan.
“Allen stated that even after confirming the presence of a child during the (dispatch) call, it still did not register enough with him to prevent him from stopping the white male [Nathan Gingles],” the report said.
An Amber alert went out and BSO deputies found Nathan and their daughter at a Walmart in nearby North Lauderdale. He was arrested and charged with murder.
