DANIA BEACH, Fla. — A man convicted of a 1993 murder in Hollywood and now accused of an attempted murder in Dania Beach told deputies he showed up to the victim’s house to “bring him food” from a church ministry on Thursday, according to a Broward Sheriff’s Office arrest report made public on Tuesday.
The report states that Louis James Civale, 66, of West Palm Beach, told BSO investigators he’s known the victim since the early 2000s, because “they did time in prison together.”
Just like in the May 2, 1993 Hollywood Hills killing for which he was ultimately convicted, Civale is accused of stabbing his victim. But as of Friday, the victim in the latest case was still alive, according to BSO.
Thursday’s incident happened at around 9:30 p.m. near the victim’s home in the 200 block of Southwest Fourth Street.
While deputies said they weren’t able to determine how everything began, they said multiple witnesses saw Civale and the victim “engaged in a physical struggle” on the home’s porch and the victim yelling for help after being stabbed in the neck, chest and hand.
Neighbors told deputies that Civale got into a white panel van “with church signage” and fled before help arrived, deputies said. One neighbor reported that he “attempted to stop him by holding the driver door open,” but Civale took off anyway.
Medics took the victim to Memorial Regional Hospital with life-threatening injuries and he was intubated after receiving emergency surgery as of Thursday.
Meanwhile, deputies said they saw Civale’s van on Interstate 95, just south of Oakland Park Boulevard, shortly after the crime and pulled him over.
“I did a walk-through of the scene and observed the van parked on the right shoulder,” BSO Detective Andres Lopez Munoz wrote in the report. “The van had blood smeared on the steering wheel and outside on the driver’s side panel. I also observed a pool of blood approximately 20 feet behind the van on the shoulder.”
The detective later described what he saw in the home.
After seeing signs of a fight on the blood-spattered porch, Lopez Munoz wrote that he “observed further signs of a physical struggle inside.”
“The unit, which appeared to be a single room, had a mattress on the ground, the mattress and the floor around it had large amounts of blood spatter,” he wrote. “A brown knife sheath was on the ground resting next to the mattress.”
According to the report, Civale would tell Lopez Munoz that he “hadn’t seen (the victim) in several months” and “decided to show up at (his) residence to bring him food from the ministry.”
“He admitted to showing up in the Ford van he was apprehended in,” the detective wrote. “He refused to talk to me about any specifics of the incident and claimed he only wanted to talk to me because he was concerned for (the victim’s) mental well-being as he believed (he) was suicidal.
“I inquired about spontaneous statements he made earlier in the night claiming it was self-defense but he advised he was not going to talk about the incident.”
The detective noted that “at no point until his apprehension, did (Civale) attempt to contact law enforcement to report being attacked or report (the victim) being injured despite having his cell phone with him.”
Records show he was on parole, scheduled to end in October 2029, for the 1993 murder, in which Civale, then 33, was accused of stabbing a 36-year-old friend, Robert Pravata, to death after he claimed Pravata “made a pass” at him, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
He was arrested three days later, having gone to Miami to pawn Pravata’s stereo and gold jewelry for crack cocaine money, the newspaper reported.
As of Tuesday, Civale remained held without bond in the BSO Main Jail on charges including attempted murder and a probation violation.
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