Authorities ‘laughed off’ a Florida mother’s repeated attempts to report harassment by her law-enforcement ex-boyfriend just weeks before he gunned her down at point blank range in an attempted murder-suicide.
On Thursday October 12, Palm Beach Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Demarco, 55, sat in his patrol car at Yuly Solano’s condominium complex. He was waiting for her to walk her Shih Tzu, Coco, as she did every morning.
When he saw her, he stepped out of the car, called her name and, when she turned around, calmly unloaded his police issue Glock 9mm into her chest and neck. He then committed suicide by turning the gun on himself. Miraculously Yuly survived.
Now, in a newly filed lawsuit seen by DailyMaiTV, Yuly, 41, has alleged that she twice reported that she was being ‘terrorized’ by Demarco who vandalized her property and threatened her with violence.
She claims that she asked for protection and begged the Inlet Harbor Condominium Association to put Demarco on notice, believing him to be mentally unstable, knowing him to be armed and fearing for her own and her daughter’s safety.
Aryana Solano, 18, says she wants to get her message across to others because she believes her mother’s shooting could have been prevented
Originally from Peru, Yuly Solano (pictured with Coco the Shih Tzu) worked as a bank teller for Wells Fargo and was a single mother for most of Aryana’s life. She began dating Demarco earlier this year
Yuly miraculously survived after being shot four times, but she remains in the intensive care unit
But representatives of the association neither acted nor reported her fears to the police as legally required.
Today, in an exclusive interview with DailyMailTV Yuly’s 18-year-old daughter Aryana said: ‘She wants to get her message across because this could have been prevented. She could have been well right now. She wouldn’t have been in the hospital.’
Aryana was there the morning of the shooting. She recalled: ‘We were both getting ready to leave the house. I was at home.
‘She was walking the dog so she normally doesn’t take too long, but she was taking longer than usual. When I heard the shots I didn’t really think it could be my mom, but then I heard the sirens and she still wasn’t coming back and I was calling her phone and she wasn’t picking up.
‘That’s when I knew. There was no reason she’d be out so long. And then I went running out.’
In audio from the 911 call made that day Yuly can be heard in the background, begging, ‘Help me please help me.’
And as her mother clung to life, Aryana took in the awful scene. She said: ‘I saw them both on the floor.’
The next time she saw her mother she was in the hospital, in a coma, critically injured. The college student has visited her mother’s bedside every day since then and has just launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for medical and living expenses.
Palm Beach Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Demarco, 55, sat in his patrol car at Yuly Solano’s condominium complex on the morning of October 12. When he saw her outside, he stepped out of her car, called her name, and shot in her the chest and neck before turning the gun on himself
Aryana described Demarco, who had been in law enforcement for more than 20 years, as an unhappy person, ‘he wasn’t happy with his life, that’s how he seemed’
Four weeks on from the shooting, Yuly’s recovery has been as remarkable as her survival. She has started to eat solids and now walks around the ward for short periods. But there is a very long way to go.
Detailing her mother’s injuries Aryana explained: ‘She has a huge hole in her right arm. She got shot in the right arm, she got shot a couple of times in her right lung as well and it broke three of her ribs.
‘They had to take out part of her lower and upper lung. She barely has a voice, part of her voice, her vocal chords are paralyzed.
‘She’s going through a lot of pain. Also her right arm is paralyzed too. She has no sensation, no feeling.’
Aryana said: ‘She’s fighting. She’s continuing to remain positive, to get through it.’
According to Aryana, divorced father-of-two Demarco and her mother dated for just six months before Yuly broke things off. Less than a month later he exacted his awful revenge.
The Sheriff’s Deputy, who had been in law enforcement for more than 20 years, had been introduced to Yuly and her daughter as ‘the safety, the protection’ in the neighborhood, Aryana said, ‘because he was a police officer.’
And yet that appearance of safety rendered Demarco the greatest danger of all as, Yuly’s lawyers now contend, authorities dismissed her concerns and deferred to his uniform.
Aryana recalled: ‘He introduced himself to me and my mom because we were new to the neighborhood and they built a relationship just getting to know each other.
‘He had a dog, my mom had a dog. They walked the dogs and it went from there.’
But according to Aryana, her mother quickly became uneasy about her new boyfriend as, early on in their relationship, he displayed worrying signs of a controlling and jealous nature.
Yuly and Aryana live in Inlet Harbor Club, a complex of condominiums in Boyton Beach, Florida, where they met Michael Demarco
Over the next few months, Demarco had shown signs of ‘controlling’ behavior which ultimately led to their split. According to Yuly’s lawyer, the condo association ‘had knowledge that Deputy Detective Demarco was acting very weird. I think there was an inclination to give deference to the deputy’s uniform’
Aryana said: ‘He wasn’t a happy person, he wasn’t happy with his life, that’s how he seemed.
‘When we’d go out for dinners, lunches, or breakfast he was always very controlling. He would order for her and my mom has always been a very independent, strong-minded woman.
‘She’s been a single mother for as long as I can remember but he would take us out and want to control everything.’
Originally from Peru, Yuly, who worked as a bank teller for Wells Fargo, would call her parents each day and occasionally field work calls at home.
According to Aryana, Demarco seethed with suspicion whenever such calls occurred. She said: ‘He’d always want to know who she’s talking to, why they’re talking, what she’s doing, why they’re talking so long.’
He accused her mother of being unfaithful several times, she said: ‘He thought she was cheating with one of her bankers, which was never true. They’ve never gone out it was just phone calls and a relationship based on work.
‘She would call her parents just about every day and she would speak in Spanish and he would go crazy. He would be asking me: “Who’s she talking to? Why is she talking in Spanish? Is she talking to a guy?”‘
Yuly broke up with Demarco after she became ‘uneasy’ of him and pressured her to move in with him, Aryana says
Yuly suffered three broken ribs, a hole in her right arm, and can barely speak after being shot in the chest and neck
Very quickly, Aryana revealed, her mother became fearful of Demarco. She said: ‘That’s why she broke up with him because she was scared of him. She was very uneasy of him.’
The breaking point came, Aryana said, when Demarco started pressuring Yuly to move in with him – a commitment she was not prepared to make given her misgivings about the entire relationship.
Aryana recalled: ‘Something inside of her, it didn’t feel right. She didn’t want to and he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.’
‘Because he was pushing so hard to have her move in with him he wanted to go pick out paint to paint his house.
‘They got into this huge fight, I was in the car, he wanted to drive us to Home Depot and my mom, she didn’t want to move in with him, she didn’t want to look at pain and she kept saying, “I don’t want to. Can we please do this another time? I don’t want to argue in front of Aryana.”
‘And that was basically the break. He was yelling, he was being super aggressive, the way he was driving, he kept speeding, he was calling her names, he kept accusing her of cheating again, saying that was the reason she didn’t want to move in with him.
‘He called her a whore.’
Yuly’s attorney Gary Iscoe (pictured with Aryana) Demarco had committed the crime of aggravated stalking and willfully, maliciously, repeatedly following Yuly Solano.
Yuly tried to make a clean break but Demarco had other ideas and began his campaign of harassment and intimidation.
Attorney Gary Iscoe of the firm Steiner, Iscoe and Greene explained: ‘There was probable cause here that Deputy Detective Demarco had committed the crime of aggravated stalking and willfully, maliciously, repeatedly following Yuly Solano.
‘I think people do try to give deference to law enforcement officers in uniform; they try to give them the benefit of the doubt. In this case, in hindsight, there’s lots of evidence that he was unstable.
‘There were lots of indications that the condominium association or Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office should have been aware of Deputy Detective Demarco’s depraved indifference to human life.’
According to a neighbor Demarco had seemed ‘depressed’ following the split from Yuly that appeared to blindside him. He said he was on medication.
Iscoe pointed out: ‘There were several bizarre behaviors he exhibited after she had broken up with him.
‘One of the things he did for example was cross out her name on her mailbox which is sort of like erasing a person.
‘There were also incidents on the premises where he tried to block her in from leaving. He put materials in front of her door – just bizarre behavior that Yuly reported to the association and asked that they put him on notice.’
Iscoe also maintained that Demarco used his professional position to further intimidate his ex when he filed a lawsuit seeking return of personal property and, in his capacity as the Deputy Detective in charge of the Civil Process Unit personally served the papers.
He said: ‘That’s an inherent conflict of interest and tremendously frightening to Yuly.’
Iscoe continued: ‘The association had knowledge that Deputy Detective Demarco was acting very weird. I think there was an inclination to give deference to the deputy’s uniform.
‘He intimidated her and served papers just days before he totally lost it and was out of his mind and, premeditated, decided to shoot her.’
Iscoe added: ‘I was told by Yuly that [one member of] the Inlet Harbor Condominium Association just laughed at her.
‘She was on the phone for around 40 minutes and she heard him laugh, he just laughed it off.’
Today Yuly, her daughter, and her lawyers are determined to ‘get justice’ for a crime that they view as preventable had Yuly’s fears been taken seriously and her complaints addressed properly.
Aryana said: ‘I believe my mother is so strong today because she’s on a mission to prevent this from happening to other families, other women.’
When she sought help and protection before, nobody listened. Now, as she seeks justice and recognition Yuly is determined that, this time, she will be heard.