A man shot and killed three people in a Tamarac neighborhood as his 4-year-old daughter watched. NBC6’s Ari Odzer reports
A man shot and killed three people in a Tamarac neighborhood as his 4-year-old daughter watched, including his estranged wife and the girl's mother, his father-in-law, and a neighbor who tried to help the woman, according to a new warrant that outlines the horrific triple murder spree.
Nathan Gingles, 43, is facing three first-degree murder charges along with kidnapping, child abuse, child neglect, burglary and interference with custody following the Sunday morning rampage, Broward Sheriff's Office officials said.
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Gingles is accused of gunning down his estranged wife, 34-year-old Mary Gingles, her father, 64-year-old David Ponzer, and their neighbor, 36-year-old Andrew Ferrin.
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According to the warrant, it was just after 6 a.m. on Sunday when BSO received a 911 call of four shots fired with a female's voice screaming "Oh my God!" in the background.
The caller said he heard what sounded like a female crying and then heard two more gunshots.
A doorbell camera down the street captured the sound of gunshots followed by a woman screaming.
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As deputies were setting up a perimeter, a sergeant spotted a man in all black walking with a girl without shoes in the neighborhood, the warrant said. They matched the description of Gingles and his daughter, and video from the neighborhood from just after the shootings.
The deputies searched and found Ponzer shot to death on the back patio of a home at 5897 North Plum Bay Parkway, BSO officials said.
Ponzer was found clutching the handle of a coffee cup that was shattered on the ground next to two packs of cigarettes, the warrant said.
Investigators believe Nathan Gingles showed up at the home in all black and ambushed Ponzer.
"Nathan arrived at Mary and David's home armed with a firearm and means to conceal his identity. Nathan intentionally shot David in the head while he innocently drank coffee on his back patio," the warrant said.
Inside the home deputies found gun lock boxes that appeared unlocked, along with a domestic violence injunction order on the kitchen table with Nathan Gingles' name on it, the warrant said.
Under the order, Nathan Gingles wasn't supposed to have contact with Mary Gingles or their daughter.
While investigating the shooting, investigators learned the daughter of Nathan and Mary Gingles was missing from the home and was likely with Nathan Gingles, prompting a statewide Amber Alert to be issued.
At the home, a neighbor approached deputies and said he had been awoken by a banging on his front door.
He said he looked at surveillance video and saw it was Mary Gingles "running to his door and knocking it frantically," the warrant said.
Seconds later, a suspect in all black clothing and holding what appeared to be a black firearm, is seen walking up the driveway behind her in the video.
Mary Gingles notices and flees through the yard and out of camera footage.
The man in all black "appears to raise the firearm to a high ready position before exiting camera coverage," the warrant said.
Investigators said Mary Gingles witnessed her father get shot and "fled for fear of her life while Nathan chased her down the street. [Their daughter] was also present and witnessed David's murder," the warrant said.
Authorities started tracking Nathan Gingles' phone, which started pinging in Lauderhill. They found the phone at his apartment, but no one was there.
A license plate reader found Nathan Gingles' BMW in North Lauderdale, and investigators discovered it in the parking lot of a Walmart.
Nathan Gingles and his daughter were seen walking out of the Walmart and he was taken into custody.
While deputies were searching for Mary Gingles, they entered a home across the street from hers and found her and Ferrin shot to death inside, the warrant said.
More surveillance footage was obtained that showed her running into the home while being chased by the gunman, Gingles, the warrant said.
The video also showed Gingles and their daughter followed Mary Gingles inside the home, the warrant said.
Ferrin was apparently trying to help Mary Gingles when he was shot to death.
"In an attempt to seek refuge, Mary fled into a neighbor's residence. Upon entering the neighbor's residence, Nathan followed Mary and not only shot Mary multiple times, but also the innocent and unsuspecting resident, Andrew," the warrant said.
"It should be noted that [their daughter] was following behind Nathan and Mary as Mary was fleeing. [Their daughter] followed Nathan and Mary into Andrew's residence and was present for the murder of Mary and Andrew."
Those who have seen the video described in the warrant said the 4-year-old can be heard saying "daddy stop, daddy stop" during the killings.
BSO officials said the firearm believed to have been used in the killings was found by a dive team in a canal in the Tamarac neighborhood.
Nathan Gingles was being held without bond, Broward jail records showed. He appeared in family court Monday where he was ordered to have no contact with his daughter, who was placed in a foster shelter home.
Court records show Mary and Nathan Gingles were going through a contentious divorce. She had obtained two domestic violence injunctions against him and said he had threatened to kill her.
According to court records, the couple met in 2016 and married two years later, moving to Germany, where their daughter was born in August 2020. They returned to the States in 2023 and rented the house in Tamarac.
U.S. Army officials said Nathan Gingles was a signal corps officer in the regular Army from February 2011 to January 2019. He deployed to Afghanistan from July 2013 to January 2014 and was a captain when he left the Army.
Mary Gingles was also signal corps officer in the regular Army from June 2016 to June 2020. She had no deployments, and was also a captain when she left the Army.
Records showed Mary Gingles obtained a domestic violence injunction against Nathan Gingles in February 2024 and filed for divorce 11 days later.
She reported then that he was recently “up all night snorting Adderall and was in a drug-induced state acting bizarre in the morning,” singing “a made-up song about how he was going to kill the mother and get away with it and how no one would find her body.”
“I live in constant fear of my husband,” she stated in the petition for injunction. “He will snort Adderall and stay up all night while Sera and I try to sleep. He has left lines of crushed Adderall on his dresser” before heading to work as an IT technician, earning $187,000 a year with a military contractor serving the Southern Command in Doral.
“If you try to leave me, I will kill you,” he told her “more than once,” she swore in court records.
“Because of Nathan’s psychotic behavior, his multiple threats, his drug use, his multiple/many silenced firearms and my impending divorce actions, I am afraid Nathan will kill me and my daughter,” she wrote in the petition for injunction.
She said he owned 20 firearms, some “serious weaponry, many of which also have silencers,” including assault-style rifles and a shotgun.
She dropped the first injunction in July after her husband agreed to a “no harmful conduct” order. At some point, she said, his weapons were seized by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, though she wrote she was unsure whether they were returned to him. A request for information from BSO on the status of that seizure has not been answered.
But by the fall, in seeking a second injunction in December, she wrote his “stalking behaviors have increased recently and I think he is aiming to kill me while he has access to the rental property where I reside.”
In October, she said she discovered a tracking device on her car, one identical to one her husband had purchased weeks earlier – something she reported to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which did not follow up, she said. An email to BSO seeking the report and any follow-up has not been answered.
In late December, she reported to the sheriff finding stashed in her garage elements of what could be a murder kit: plastic gloves, plastic wrap, zip-tie restraints, crushed white powder, shoe and hair coverings and a note: “air embolism, psych medications, waterboarding.” She noted he had access to syringes for injecting testosterone.
“I think it is imminent that he will attempt to murder me,” she wrote, in obtaining the second injunction in December, which was extended to March 19.
