Gabriel Joseph Melgaard (Pasco County Sheriff’s Office)
A 40-year-old man in Florida was arrested earlier this month after he allegedly beat his next-door neighbor to death, staged a bizarre crime scene that included stuffing items into the victim’s nostril and underwear, then called 911 and reported finding the victim dead when he stopped by to offer to mow the victim’s lawn.
Gabriel Joseph Melgaard was taken into custody on July 9 and charged with one count each of murder/homicide, probation violation, and misuse of the 911 system, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to a probable cause affidavit, deputies with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office on July 8 were dispatched to a home located in the 7100 block of Westcott Drive in response to a 911 call regarding a deceased adult male. The caller identified himself to the emergency dispatcher as Melgaard.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders walked into a grisly scene, locating the victim lying face-up on the floor in his living room.
“The decedent had several items stuffed into the waistband of his underwear. The decedent’s shirt was pulled up, exposing his stomach, football was tucked under his shirt. The decedent’s head was covered by a box which contained various items,” the affidavit states. “The decedent had a semi-automatic firearm in his right hand and a live .38-caliber round of ammunition had been inserted into the decedent’s left nostril. A magazine to a semi-automatic handgun had been placed in the decedent’s mouth.”
A representative from the medical examiner’s office was dispatched to the scene and noted that the victim had numerous “linear striations” on his abdomen caused by being beaten with an unknown object, various injuries to his face and head, defensive wounds on his hands, and a single puncture wound to his left shoulder.
The medical examiner determined that the manner of death was a homicide.
In a voluntary interview with investigators, Melgaard, who lives with his mother, allegedly said he slept from 2:30 a.m. until 6 a.m. that morning. When he awoke, he saw that it was “a nice day,” so he went to the victim’s home “to see if he wanted his lawn mowed,” Melgaard allegedly said.
Melgaard claimed he went next door and found the front door ajar, so he went inside and found the victim lying on the floor dead. Melgaard then told investigators he did not harm the victim in any way and even claimed that he had never been inside the other man’s house prior to finding him dead. He then gave a voluntary DNA sample and shoe impressions to police.
Later that day, at about 6:30 p.m., Melgaard’s sister called 911 and told the sheriff’s office that her brother had just confessed to killing his neighbor.
“[Melgaard] said the neighbor raped our mother,” she told police, per the affidavit. “She said, the defendant also said, when speaking about the victim, ‘He’s worse than Jeffrey Dahmer and he has victim’s hats in the house and he has pictures of all the people that he’s killed. And I killed him. Okay. I killed him.’”
Melgaard’s mother allegedly told police that she had never been sexually battered by the victim.
The sister also provided a brief description of the way in which Melgaard allegedly told her he’d killed the other man.
“She said the only thing [Melgaard] said was ‘He’d pass out and then I would let him come back to. And then I did it again and I did it again.’ But he didn’t say what he did,” the document states.
The sister also told detectives that her brother had a history of substance abuse and psychosis and had spent three weeks at a mental health facility in April.
A man and woman who lived on the other side of Melgaard’s house allegedly told police that he also told them he’d killed the victim. The man said Melgaard came over and told him the victim was “like Jeffrey Dahmer and the victim raped his mother and his sister and attempted to rape him (the defendant),” the affidavit states. “The defendant stated he killed the victim by punching him twice and stomping on him; he also ‘tried to cut him up.’”
Investigators said that several of the items in the victim’s home, including a “grabber stick” and firearm, had Melgaard’s DNA on them.
He is currently being held at Land O’ Lakes Jail without bond. It is not clear whether an attorney is representing him against the aforementioned charges.
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