Tenant’s son detained in Nova Southeastern professor’s murder
Tenant’s son detained in Nova Southeastern professor’s murder
Plantation police are interviewing a `person of interest’ in the stabbing death of a professor. He has not been charged.
VASQUEZ AND JENNIFER LEBOVICH – jlebovich@MiamiHerald.com
The son of a tenant who was living in a home owned by a slain Nova Southeastern professor was in police custody Thursday night and being questioned by Plantation detectives.
Randy H. Tundidor, 21, had taken his first bite of a chicken finger when a SWAT team swarmed the Beverly Hills Cafe Wednesday, throwing him to the ground, said defense attorney Jim Lewis. Cuts to his face and wounds to his neck, visible in his booking mug, were caused during the arrest.
Tundidor has not been charged, but is being called a “person of interest” in the stabbing death of Joseph Morrissey.
Plantation police spent Thursday searching the family business, Gator Tint and Sound, a car window tinting company where Tundidor worked.
Morrissey, 46, died during what police believe was a home-invasion robbery. The assailant, who tied up both Morrissey and his wife, Linda, torched the kitchen before fleeing, splashing gasoline to accelerate the burn.
Police won’t discuss a motive and have not released any information about the suspect. But they do think the Morrisseys were the intended victims. “Due to the way this investigation is progressing, we believe this was not a random act of violence, that this home was specifically targeted,” Detective Robert Rettig said.
Police say an intruder got into the couple’s home in the 600 block of Northwest 75th Terrace after midnight Tuesday, abducted the couple and forced them to drive to an ATM and withdraw money.
The robber, who had a gun, and the couple then went back to the home, where the assailant killed Morrissey.
Initial reports indicated that Morrissey had been shot, and witnesses reported hearing gunshots, but the Broward Medical Examiner found multiple stab wounds.
Linda Morrissey escaped with the couple’s 5-year-old son and later led firefighters to her husband’s body on a patio outside the kitchen.
On Wednesday, Tundidor arrived at the Beverly Hills Cafe in Plantation for a late lunch.
The server who waited on the man told restaurant general manager Sandra Marcelo that he “was very fidgety. He didn’t stay in one table, he like moved to two or three different tables and then he finally sat down.” Another peculiarity: The man kept a large wad of cash in his hands the whole time.
“Never in his pocket or wallet or anything,” Marcelo said.
He ordered chicken fingers and fries. Police stormed the restaurant shortly after the food arrived.
“He ate one chicken finger,” Marcelo said. “He got maybe not all of it even down when they came in.”
As police took him into custody, the man never said a word. In the commotion, the wad of cash he’d clutched in his hands — exactly $152 — spilled onto the floor, along with a pack of Newport cigarettes and a red lighter.
Regarding the money on the floor, a police officer told Marcelo “that could be marked as evidence, I need you to count it with me.” The pair counted out the dollars at a nearby table.
Tundidor had been arrested five times before in Florida, according to state criminal records. He was on probation for a burglary case in 2006, Lewis said, in which the victim was his stepmother.
He was locked up Thursday for a probation violation.
`I have represented Randy Tundidor in the past,” attorney Lewis said. “I know what these allegations are, and I just cannot believe that this young man is capable of anything like this.
“The only tie that I’m aware of is that the victim was the landlord of the father,” Lewis added.
Morrissey joined the Nova faculty last year after being laid off by Motorola, where he had worked from 1996-2009.
He “provided important contributions in the area of electromagnetic energy research,” according to Motorola spokesperson Tama McWhinney.
Appu Rathinavelu was department chair at the time and hired Morrissey because of his cancer-related research interests.
“He was happy to get back to his research,” Rathinavelu said. He’d been “very uncertain about his research career” since the layoff.
The two had known each other for years; Morrissey worked with Rathinavelu’s wife at the Rumbaugh-Goodwin Institute for Cancer Research in Plantation. It was there that Morrissey met Linda, who also worked there, Rathinavelu said. Morrissey filed for divorce from the former Natacha Gonzalez in 1994, then married Linda.
A custody battle involving the son he had with Natacha dragged on for more than a decade.
Last fall, Morrissey taught an upper level course in immunopharmacy, Rathinavelu said. And students liked him.
“I heard a lot of enthusiasm [about] the way the material was presented,” he said. “He was a good communicator.”
Morrissey, who wasn’t teaching this semester, occupied a standard 10×10 “junior faculty” office on the third floor of Nova’s Terry Building. He was on a yearly contract working toward what Rathinavelu called a five-year “continuing” contract.
“He was spending a good part of time in the lab [and] at least two days at the [Goodwin] institute, because we have a machine there that we don’t have in the lab:” a flow cytometer, used for examining cells and chromosomes.
Rathinavelu said that Morrissey seemed like a happy person. “I had no idea of any problems in his life,” he said. “We mostly talked shop.”
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