Natasha whyte dell

Relatives say he is expected to survive. According to court documents and police reports, the couple, both from Jamaica, who married in , had a long history of domestic violence. Habersham said Whyte-Dell told her officials of the Florida Department of Children and Families wanted to talk to her about the incident but, she said, no one contacted her. Whyte-Dell had obtained a restraining order against Dell but he stalked her nonetheless, friends said.

She reportedly filed for divorce on three occasions but did not proceed with any of the cases. She told police she always took him back because she felt sorry for him. However, she said the knife-wielding incident left her in fear for her life. Dell was arrested after the December attack on felony aggravated assault but was convicted of misdemeanor improper exhibition of a dangerous weapon, according to the Palm Beach Post.

The night before the murder-suicide, neighbors told reporters, Dell had been drinking. One man said he was overheard in a restaurant saying that he was going to kill his family. Congressman Alcee Hastings, whose district includes Riviera Beach, issued a statement offering support to the family.

DCF is now reviewing its procedures as a result, he said. The hearing had been scheduled before the tragedy but commissioners wanted answers on the incident.

Ryan, who survived the attack, is a student at William T. It wasn't until she turned on the morning news that she learned of the deaths. Enraged man kills estranged wife, 4 stepchildren in Florida. The sounds of children playing basketball outside the modest, pale yellow house in Riviera Beach, Fla. Even in a neighborhood where gunfire is somewhat familiar, though, police say the unimaginable happened Monday: A man who had once told his estranged wife she would end up in the morgue killed the woman and four of his stepchildren.

Patrick Dell, 41, spared his biological 1- and 3-year-old children, who were in the house during his middle-of-the-night rampage. It appeared his targets were calculated: Police said Dell and his wife, Natasha Whyte-Dell, 36, had been going through a divorce.

A fifth stepchild, year-old Ryan Barnett, also was shot in the house but was expected to survive. The horror that unfolded Monday about 2 a. Whyte-Dell had told police in December that her husband had been terrorizing her for months, and she told friends he had been following her to work and nursing school despite a restraining order.

She said he had even installed cameras in the house to watch her, and neighbors said they saw him come to the house -- but he would park several blocks away. It came to a head Dec. He made a particularly chilling threat: "You will be going to the morgue," he told her, according to a police report.

After that incident -- five days before Christmas -- Whyte-Dell told police she feared for her life. Dell was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and criminal mischief. The Department of Children and Families investigated after the knife attack, but closed the case two months later and never removed the children, spokeswoman Elisa Cramer said. Still, time after time, friends said Whyte-Dell took her husband back, hoping things would get better. Dell seemed paranoid, a neighbor said, always thinking someone was against him.

On Sunday, while he was at a club, he was asked to leave after making a drunken threat. Gordon said she left the club with Dell and went to a nearby park, the last place the man was seen before the shootings. Inside the home, officers found the bodies of the woman and her four children: year-old Daniel Barnett; year-old Javon Nelson; year-old Diane Barnett; and year-old Bryan Barnett.

The small home where the killings happened was a popular hangout for neighborhood kids, who loved using the front-yard basketball hoop and closeness to a trim cemetery across the street that often was used as a park. Just a few doors down sits an immaculate red-brick church. On Monday, a silver chain-link fence had been tangled with yellow crime-scene tape. A black mailbox was on a post outside with a single balloon in the shape of a red heart tied to it.

Neighbors said gunshots had become an all-too-common sound in the area. Jeanette Walker, a year-old hairstylist who lives nearby, said she thought nothing of the gunfire because she heard no sirens. In this case there was no question as to the evil that lurked in this home. It harbored a well documented and often publically witnessed history of violent domestic violence, willful and blatant acts of intimidation, control and threats of bodily harm up to and including death against his wife, Natasha Whyte-Dell, Still, despite the history of abuse and these often public threats against both his wife and children, Patrick Dell was able to follow through with his years of abuse and threats.

Patrick Dell had threatened his wife in front of neighbors several months back that he was going to send Natasha Whyte-Dell his wife, to the morgue and make her family cry. When they passed by a seemingly unassuming front yard, no different from the outside to other homes in the neighborhood, they discovered Patrick Dell in his front yard, partially nude, partially covered in blood and with a loaded pistol in his mouth.

As the police exited their vehicle, and tried talking to Patrick Dell, thinking that he was simply someone attempting to commit an act of suicide, he pulled the trigger. The police tried to help him, but an EMT likened his head to a piece of Swiss cheese, and that there was nothing that could be done. When police looked around trying to ascertain just what had happened they made the grim discovery of what truly had transpired as they entered the residence.

Dell had also wounded Ryan Barnett, 15, in the neck. Ryan was tough and unafraid — he had defended his mother many times, and he would survive this. So what, you may ask, caused Patrick Dell to fly into such a rage, that he needed to take it out on his wife and children? What causes any psychotic to do so. Simple as that, and it would be his estranged wife and her children who would come to bear the brunt of his rage when the broke, inebriated Patrick, ignoring a personal protective order, forced his way into the home.

The history here goes back nearly the entire length of the marriage between Patrick Dell and his wife Natasha, the worst period of abuse being the last couple of years.

What sort of behavior would neighbors and family not see a need to continually call police or offer safe harbor for Natasha, Daniel, Javon, Diane, Bryan and Ryan?

Patrick Dell had quite the routine. Over the last three years alone, according to police reports and eye witness accounts, he had attacked Natasha more the 6 times with a knife. Natasha had been treated multiple times in the local emergency room for several lacerations from both public and private beatings.

She had been raped, and she had been verbally sliced and diced over and over again. He brought her to the brink of suicide, with her children her only saving grace. In total, police had visited the Dell household 34 times over the past three years and never made an arrest.

How that is possible boggles the mind and defies the imagination. Chilling verbal abuse on the night of December 20th, finally raised the alarm to family members. When one of the children interceded he slashed the tires on her car and spent over an hour carving an X at the end of their driveway in the concrete.

It was on this day he promised her he would send her to the morgue and make her family cry. It was a house of love many of them said. Nothing but crime scene tape along the chain link fence, and a single heart shaped balloon tied to the mailbox remained.