Article Courtesy of The Palm Beach Post
By Eliot Kleinberg, Olivia Hitchcock and Jorge Milian
Published October 22, 2017
BOYNTON BEACH -- The Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy
who shot his ex-girlfriend, then fatally shot himself Thursday, was on duty
and used his service weapon, Boynton Beach police confirmed Monday.
Meanwhile, an attorney for the victim, Yuly Solano, said Monday night he’s
planning lawsuits against the condominium association where the shooting
took place and possibly the sheriff’s office.
A five-minute 911 call released Monday by Boynton Beach police captured
Solano’s cries for help in the moments after longtime Palm Beach County
Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Anthony DeMarco stepped out of his marked cruiser
in uniform at about 8 a.m. at the Inlet Harbor Club condominiums off Federal
Highway north of Gateway Boulevard.
“Can you help me? Please help me,” Solano cries about four minutes into the
five-minute call. Seconds later sirens can be heard as rescue crews arrive.
According to persons close to Solano, she is a banker, is divorced, and has
a daughter in college.
“I just seen a sheriff that works here walk up to this girl, they used to
date, and just shot her and then I heard gun shots and he shot himself and
his car door’s open,” a caller to the 911 line initially says.
The dispatcher asked for clarification: “A sheriff?”
The caller explains the man worked for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s
Office.
“He shot her and then he shot himself?” the dispatcher asks.
“Yes, they’re both laying on the ground,” the man says. The gun was next to
DeMarco, the man said.
Police replaced with dead air the part of the call that describes where on
her body Solano was shot.
Police had said DeMarco and Solano broke up about three weeks ago. A
neighbor who asked not to be named said the two had been a couple for about
seven months.
As of Monday, police refused to name Solano, saying she signed a form
calling on police not to reveal her name.
But attorney Gary Iscoe of the firm Steinger, Iscoe & Greene released a
statement Monday identifying Solano and saying he’s planning a lawsuit
against the condo association for negligence.
“Thursday’s unfortunate shooting of Ms. Solano may have been preventable as
multiple claims and evidence illustrate the harassment the unarmed mother
reported both to her condominium association and management office prior to
the shooting,” the statement read.
Legal action against PBSO “is also being considered,” the statement said.
“It is my belief that one or more individuals must have knowledge of what
drove Mr. DeMarco to act the way he did,” Iscoe is quoted on the statement.
“I question, were there actions there that were missed by the authorities?”
Solano, her daughter and DeMarco had stayed with one of DeMarco’s relatives
in the western communities when the Inlet Harbor complex lost power during
Hurricane Irma, but when they returned home, Solano surprised DeMarco by
ending the relationship “out of the blue,” the neighbor said.
He said DeMarco then seemed to sink into depression and, on the Sunday
before the shooting, told the neighbor he was on medication.
DeMarco, divorced since 2002, was a volunteer football coach at Palm Beach
Central High School in Wellington in 2013 and 2014, according to school
district records. Before that, he was active in youth football leagues in
the Boynton Beach and Wellington areas, a man who coached with him said this
past week.
DeMarco never faced criminal charges of any kind in Florida, state records
show. But court records indicate he filed an action in late September
requesting Solano return a mattress, box spring and mirror worth nearly
$2,500. He claimed Solano refused to return a large mirror from El Dorado
Furniture and a Serta plush mattress from City Mattress. The two were to
appear in court Nov. 1 for a pretrial conference about the dispute, records
show.
Court records show that in 1988, DeMarco and several relatives legally
changed their family name from Dunkow. The records do not provide a
rationale for the change.
Lake Worth city records show DeMarco applied to that city’s police
department on Nov. 23, 1986, still as Michael Dunkow Jr., and was hired on
March 30, 1987.
He said on his application he’d come to South Florida from Long Island,
where he’d attended public school, as well as community college and
real-estate school. He then was a salesman in a Long Island jewelry store
before moving in 1986 to Palm Beach County and becoming a partner in West
Palm Imports, a jewelry retail store. He said he’d applied to the police
departments in Lake Worth, West Palm Beach and Greenacres, as well as the
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
In November 1989, then-City Manager John A. Kelly commended Dunkow — now
named DeMarco — for his efforts during a power outage. DeMarco, a tactical
officer, received an “outstanding” review in 1989 and “above average” in
1988 and 1990. The 1990 evaluation said DeMarco missed a court date for
which he received a written reprimand and was required to write a letter of
explanation to prosecutors.
Records show DeMarco earned various merit-based and union-contract-mandated
raises, in the 2 percent to 4 percent range, bringing him from $8.85 an hour
as a rookie to $15.29 about the time he resigned on Sept. 11, 1995, to work
at the sheriff’s office. Thirteen years later, in 2008, the city contracted
with the sheriff and disbanded its police department.
At the sheriff’s office, documents show, DeMarco most recently worked as a
detective in PBSO’s civil-process department. Documents provided late Monday
by the sheriff’s office were limited to the hiring of DeMarco and comprised
either documents from Lake Worth or medical and other personal documents
that mostly were blanked out.
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