Ten days before she was shot to death, along with her father and a neighbor whose home she ran into seeking help, Mary Gingles prepared with her lawyer responses to the husband who would stand accused of the triple homicide in Tamarac.
Ten days before she was shot to death, along with her father and a neighbor whose home she ran into seeking help, Mary Gingles prepared with her lawyer responses to the husband who would stand accused of the triple homicide in Tamarac.
They became public this week, in a posthumous court filing in the case she filed in December seeking a permanent domestic violence injunction against husband Nathan.
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Nathan Gingles served his “request for admissions” on her on February 4 and two days later, Mary drafted her responses – what would turn out to be her final warnings about the man she had said she knew would kill her.
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Her attorney, Kelley Joseph, declined to comment on why she filed the pleadings Wednesday on behalf of a client who was murdered two and a half weeks earlier.
But under Florida rules, if no response to requested admissions is filed after 30 days, they are deemed by the court to be admitted.
This weeks’ filing came just before that deadline passed – on the same day Nathan was indicted by a grand jury on first-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and other charges connected to the Feb. 16 kidnapping of their 4-year-old daughter.
At his arraignment Friday, his attorney pled not guilty and demanded a trial by jury on his behalf, giving prosecutors 45 days to decide whether to file a notice to seek the death penalty for the murders.
On the family court side, though, Mary Gingles is still speaking through the court filing and, when it comes to Nathan seeking admissions that he was not a threat to her, the responses are clear: denied.
Stating the responses are “in her words,” the filing has Mary denying point-by-point her estranged husband’s demands, giving her last official warning on what was about to happen to her.
Asked to admit there’s been no documented threats of violence by him against her: “Deny. I have documented several threats involving the tracker, the break-ins and other issues.”
The “tracker” is an electronic device she reported to the sheriff’s office she found on her car in October, which she connected through credit cards records and internet searches to her husband.
Asked to admit Nathan has not threatened to harm her: “Denied. Any reasonable person would consider Nathan’s action threated to harm me.”
Responding to Nathan’s demand she admit she is not in imminent fear of becoming a victim of his domestic violence: “Deny. Nathan has acted unhinged … for a long time. I am in imminent fear of becoming a victim of domestic violence.”
Again – 10 days after drafting those responses, police say, her fears were borne out when Nathan kidnapped their daughter Seraphine and took her along to witness his killing spree, before she was rescued from him hours later by Broward Sheriff’s deputies.
