Background: A section of Hawksbill Street Northwest in Palm Bay, Florida (Google Maps). Inset: William Nowak (Brevard County Sheriff”s Office).
An elderly man is accused of shooting his son in the face because he and his spouse did not visit the older man’s wife over the weekend while she was in at-home hospice care.
William Nowak, 84, has been charged with attempted murder, according to an arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime. The underlying incident occurred on Tuesday evening.
Nowak was at his home on Hawksbill Street Northwest in Palm Bay, Florida, where he lived with his wife and their disabled daughter. His wife had recently been put on in-home hospice care, “and William has been taking care of both of them,” the court document states.
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The defendant’s son and his wife came over to the house to visit, something she said they did “on a weekly basis.” After they arrived around 6 p.m., “William began to express how he was upset they did not visit over the weekend.”
According to authorities, an argument between the father and son ensued.
“Get out of my house or I’m going to shoot you,” Nowak told his son at one point, according to the affidavit. And “immediately” as he made the threat, he is said to have walked into his bedroom and grabbed a gun.
The son’s wife followed him, urging him to put the gun down, but Nowak reportedly would not listen. He then walked past her back into the kitchen where his son remained.
The defendant, holding his gun, pointed it at his son and fired, “striking him in the face,” authorities say. The victim’s wife called 911, and Nowak walked back to the bedroom and returned without the firearm. He reportedly said something such as “what just happened” and “began crying and screaming.”
Palm Bay police officers were dispatched to the home in reference to a woman saying “her father-in-law, just shot her husband in the head.” They learned that the suspect was still in the home and the victim was “barely able to talk.”
Officers detained Nowak and did a safety sweep of the home. They found a “wet (presumed blood) reddish brown substance on the kitchen floor and a single spent casing, consistent with a shooting.” A gun was found on the bed in Nowak’s bedroom, and suspected blood was also seen on the driveway.
First responders helped secure medical care for the son, who was transported to an area hospital, with staff reporting that his injury “does not have an exit wound and the bullet fragmented into multiple pieces which are still lodged in the victim’s face and jaw” as of roughly 11:40 p.m. on Tuesday night.
He had to be sedated because of his injury and could not give a statement.
The suspect was brought to a different hospital for high blood pressure. He “appeared to be incoherent and could not answer any questions,” the detective writing the affidavit wrote. Once Nowak was medically cleared to be released from the hospital on Wednesday morning, he was placed in the Brevard County Jail.
Nowak made his first appearance in court on Thursday, and he has an arraignment scheduled for Jan. 8.
