Man arrested in 1977 killing of Coral Gables nurse

Allen Bregman faces murder charge in death of Debra Clark

MIAMI – A 75-year-old man who recently moved to North Carolina from Boca Raton has been arrested in connection with the 1977 killing of a South Florida nurse.

Allen Bregman was arrested Aug. 4 in Macon County, North Carolina, Miami-Dade police Detective Daniel Ferrin said. He faces a murder charge in the death of Debra Clark, who was a nurse in Coral Gables.

Police were conducting a welfare check on Aug. 6, 1977, when they found Clark's body at her Southwest 67th Avenue apartment. Police said Clark, 23, died of a single gunshot wound to the chest and blunt force trauma to her head.

Ferrin said Bregman became a suspect in the shooting after police learned that the married man had been romantically involved with Clark and filed an insurance claim under her name.

According to an arrest warrant, Clark sent a formal letter to her insurance company in May 1977 asking to change the beneficiary of her life insurance policy from her sisters to Bregman. Two days after Clark's body was found, a claim was made for her life insurance.

Detectives took DNA and fingerprint samples from Bregman earlier this year, and fingerprints found on an ashtray near Clark's bed were a match.

Ferrin said the ashtray was believed to have been used to attack Clark, and the DNA was consistent with evidence found at the scene of the crime.

File: Allen Bregman Arrest Warrant

"The DNA report came back and said that there was a 99 percent probability that the hair was Mr. Bregman's hair," Bregman's attorney, Barry Wax, told Local 10 News.

Wax said the hair is not a concern.

"The fact that the hair was found in the apartment really doesn't add anything to the calculus," Wax said.

That's because Bregman owned the apartment, Wax said.

"The police knew that Mr. Bregman owned the apartment," Wax said. "They knew that he visited the apartment, and they knew that he had a relationship with this young lady."

Bregman recently moved to North Carolina from South Florida, where he was a real estate agent at Lang Realty, according to his Twitter page. He returned to South Florida on Friday and was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.

Clark's siblings created a GoFundMe page to help pay for their parents to travel back and forth between South Florida and New York where they live.


About the Authors:

Peter Burke returned for a second stint of duty at Local 10 News in February 2014.