A 21-year-old adoptee from Ukraine slaughtered his American parents, Robbie and Jennifer Tower, on Friday and has been charged with their murders.
The Christian missionary couple had spent their entire life savings to adopt Dima Towers when he was 14 from a Ukrainian orphanage that was “prison-like,” according to the Daily Mail. They then made him a part of their home in Florida and reportedly showered him with love.
Warren Rines, who is Robbie Tower’s uncle, told the New York Post, “He would have bruises on him in the orphanage. When they went out to eat, he would have like six hot dogs. He wasn't getting a lot to eat. These orphanages are like prison for kids.”
The Towers had frequented Ukraine prior to the adoption on Christian missions.
Dima stabbed the couple to death in their Florida home before leading police on an 8-hour manhunt. Police also noted that the Towers’ bodies were surrounded by large pools of blood, indicating the attack had gone on for a prolonged amount of time. They also appeared to have been laid head-to-head by Dimas.
“These were two really good, caring people. It just makes no sense, none of us understand the hate. They were the only two people in his life who ever tried to help him. They treated him like their own son,” said Rines.
“When I first met him, he was interested in boxing,” he added. Rines himself is a martial arts enthusiast. He continued, “But he didn’t want to box. He wanted to hit. He wanted to hurt.”
Dima had shown signs of violence in the past, even giving his adoptive father a black eye before being sent to live with his adoptive mother’s side of the family. After a short period, however, Towers insisted he come back and claimed his violence was the result of the Ukrainian’s difficulty fitting into their culture. He had also been known to want to fight his peers at school.
The couple had forgiven him for everything and decided the solution was more love and attention before welcoming him back into their home.
“That’s how much he loved him,” Rines said. “They forgave him for everything. They bought him a car, whatever he wanted or needed.”
Police arrived at the scene of the crime on Friday after receiving a call from a neighbor claiming she had heard a woman screaming for help and banging on her door. When she opened the door, the woman was gone, but police noted blood on her doorstep.
They subsequently found Dima outside the Towers’ home covered in blood, closing the trunk of his car. When they told him to freeze, he got in the driver's seat and fled, evading arrest for 8 hours.
The motive for the slayings is still unknown.
“Robbie was a good man. He didn’t deserve this.” Rines continued, “Rob and Jennifer were really nice, sweet, good people, kind of people you really don’t see anymore…in this day and age.”
