A man who crashed a trailer truck into a Florida strip club he had been evicted from, killing one person, sent accusatory text messages to a childhood friend before carrying out his evil revenge plot, police allege.
“Bye,” Dylan Fogle wrote, according to the arrest report.
“I’m going to prison for vehicular manslaughter.”
A 25-year-old North Carolina man was charged Thursday with first-degree murder, attempted murder, homicide by vehicle, DUI manslaughter and DUI causing serious injury.
Fogle’s arrest photo showed a lacerated lip and multiple cuts across his face that police said he suffered during a frenzy that followed an altercation outside the store.
According to a police report, when officers arrived at Emperor’s Gentlemen’s Club in Tampa just before 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, they found Fogle staggering and showing signs of being under the influence of alcohol. The show was obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.
Fogle admitted to being the driver of the tractor-trailer when it struck the group of six, killing 44-year-old Giovanni Soto, but claimed it was an accident and that the accelerator was stuck.
But witnesses said Fogle may have been targeting a drinking buddy.
According to reports, Fogle and Anthony Matelski, from North Carolina, were at the club together before they were each kicked out separately for inappropriately touching the same dancer.
Fogle, who was first evicted, told police he was waiting for Matelski inside a lorry, and after being escorted outside, Matelski became “physically confrontational” with staff.
Video footage shows someone push Mr Matelski onto his back, but he continues to jump up and tackle the crowd, seconds before the tractor-trailer drives through the crowd.
Soto died at the scene and two others were seriously injured.
Fogle admitted he noticed the fight and drove his truck forward, but claimed he lost control of the vehicle.
But when asked about the incriminating text messages, Fogle gave no valid responses, according to the report.
Police previously said Fogle had been “lying in wait” for at least 30 minutes for the person he was arguing with to emerge from the crowd, but the report did not say whether that person was Matelski.
Police said none of the three were the attacker’s targets.
Fogle was also hospitalized after the incident and police said his blood alcohol level was above the legal limit of 0.08.
According to police reports, the large tractor-trailer belonged to Fogle, and he had been taking that route to Tampa on that fateful night.
According to his childhood friends, being a truck driver was his “dream job.”
“This was not something I expected from him. I know he has violent tendencies but I never in a million years thought he would do something like that,” Angelise Ortiz, who received Fogle’s last email before the incident, told the Tampa Bay Times.
“I don’t think he was meant to survive.”
