Martin County Sheriff William Snyder provided updates on the drug-fueled attack on a woman and her son early Sunday Morning.
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The homeowner whose house Gallo is accused of breaking into thought about the similarity of her situation to the August 15 attack when 19-year-old Austin Harrouff is accused of killing a local couple, biting the husband in the face and abdomen and fending off deputies, a police K-9 and a Taser, Snyder said.
Deputies said the 19-year old’s friend told them he and his friend were using methylone and acid, and led investigators to a house where drugs were recovered. Harrouff’s blood is still being tested and Gallo’s will be. It had virtually disappeared since the Chinese government cracked down on its manufacture previous year.
The early Sunday assault in Stuart happened weeks after police said Florida State University student Austin Harrouff killed a couple and bit off part of the man’s face elsewhere in Martin County.
Gallo then broke the top pane window of the door with his hands and jumped through like a cannonball as she described it, Snyder said. When deputies arrived, the homeowner’s son was holding down the 19-year-old intruder.
Her son tackled Gallo and wrestled him to the ground, and their fight went from one side of the house to the other, Snyder said.
The woman living in the house hit the intruder several times with a baseball bat to no effect, Snyder added.
“They’re very similar”, Snyder said, according to the Palm Beach Post.
According to deputies, the intruder’s friend said they ingested methylone and acid before his freaky behavior. But a friend who was with him said they had both taken LSD and a bath salt called methylone.
The woman was treated at a hospital after being injured by broken glass. The homeowner and her son struggled to control him.
Snyder identified the suspect as Nico Gallo, 19, who he says repeatedly told the homeowner he was on Flakka, but was in fact a controlled substance called Dibutylone. Se was able to break free and ran to the back of the house.
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The latest assault did not involve fatalities like the double murder by accused killer Austin Harrouff whom police said chewed the face and torso of one of the victims although there were striking similarities. The Martin County public defender’s office said it has not been assigned the case and it wasn’t immediately known if Gallo has an attorney.
