By Angela Hommell
I am Angela Hommell, I was raped by Fred Waterfield and David Gore. The Indiana River County Sheriff’s Dept did not prosecute Waterfield and Gore for the , abduction, rape with a deadly weapon and attempted murder . Because of not prosecuting the cousins’ now they had a free ticket not to only rape, but killed. So this is how they become known as the” Killing Cousins “. They then went on a rape/killing spree. David become an auxiliary Sheriff, but isn’t it, it’s not what you know it’s who you know, and with an uncle Leroy Gore a deputy Sheriff in the department, one can only imagine!
David Gore’s death brought all this back into the news. There is a story about me that states, “Their first successful rape took place near Vero Beach, and while the victim notified police, she later dropped the charges to avoid embarrassment in court... Who wrote this? How did they get this?
Please let me know, because this is not exactly what happened. There is much more to this.
I have seen this quote written in several different sources. This is not what happened at all. I am Angela Hommell, I was raped at gunpoint by Fred Waterfield and David Gore on July 21, 1976. Fred was introduced to me by my ex-husband Robert A. Hommell Bob wanted to make sure that if I had any car issues to call Fred Waterfield exclusively. Several days later, I found my two rear tires flat. (I learned later my tires were slashed) and I called Bob first and he reminded in an angry voice, you were told to call Fred. So I did and Fred came in no time. Fred offer to give me a ride to work since time was in essence and said he would fix the car later. Do to the time Fred decided to take a shortcut through the orange groves. He then intentionally drove the car into the ditch and got stuck. Fred told me he was going to get his cousin Dave who works in the orange grove, to get him to help and instructed me to stay in the car. Fred came back with David Gore. This was the only time I had ever come in contact with David. They held me at gunpoint and took turns raping me. Fred was the leader and David was the follower. I reminded Fred that I am not an American but German and the Government along with my father will find out. That is when Fred said “oh yea, he said that” and told David they better not kill me. They had to let me go. The plan was to kill me and have me fed to the Alligators. Fred he is going to let me go, but I could not tell anyone and I had to promises. Back home, I called Bob and he was shocked I was at home; he said he was not to do this and he will be right home. When he saw me he said I have to take you to the hospital, they notified the police because of the severe injuries to my body. The hospital examiner determined I was raped. The sheriff’s dept got involved and I told them everything. They arrested Fred and Dave that night. I was required to go the Sheriff’s department. I had to go there many times and Bob would accompany me. At first they were nice, but then it becomes an interrogation rather than an investigation. I was asked/told to take a lie detector test which I did. They claimed that I failed. I was a divorced 20 year old immigrant from Germany and the Sheriff’s department said if I do not recant this story, I could be deported. They tried to blackmail me. I wanted justice and wanted Fred and David prosecuted for for what they did to me. The case was dropped and to this day I do not know why.
In the early eighties, DA Robert Stone and David Morgan showed up at my place of work. They needed my testimony for the conviction of Fred Waterfield and David Gore. Yet, Dave confessed and I was not needed in his trial. So they needed me for Fred’s trial. I was one of only two witnesses left to testify. All the others were killed. I was under the impression finally justice will be served for my rape. When they send for me again, I asked again, if they could convict Fred and Dave for my rape, Robert Stone told me the statue of limitations was up and they could not do anything for the crime against me. Yet, they needed my testimony to convict Fred. I performed my civic duty and was a witness for the prosecution. Ironically, I was called a liar by the Sheriff’s dept., Indian River County. And at the same time was needed by DA Robert Stone to gain a conviction.
My rape is one thing; my interrogation with the Indian River County, that nice resort town of Vero Beach is another. I would like to find out where this come from … she later dropped the charges to avoid embarrassment in court... If someone would please come forward and let me know.
Editor's note: this account is published as its author wrote it, at her request and under her own name. Angela Hommell is the person the crime was committed against, and the piece exists because a sentence written about her elsewhere, that she dropped the charges to avoid embarrassment in court, has been repeated in several places and she says it is false. Her spelling and grammar are unaltered. One factual slip in the opening paragraph is hers and is flagged rather than silently corrected: the department is the Indian River County Sheriff's Office, not Indiana River, and she gives it correctly later on.
What the record establishes and what this account asserts are not the same thing, and the difference matters most for the people named in it who were never charged. No case was ever brought over the 1976 rape described here, so no court has made any finding about it either way. The author's then husband is named, and the paragraph about the slashed tyres and the instruction to call Fred Waterfield invites a conclusion about him; he has never been charged with any offence in connection with it, no court or inquiry has made any finding against him, and this archive states none. The same applies to the deputy named as a relative of David Gore, who is a matter of record as a serving deputy and no more than that is claimed here. The account of the Sheriff's Department interrogation, the polygraph and the threat of deportation is the author's testimony about what was said to her in a room in 1976, and no departmental record confirming or denying it has been published.
What is settled is what the two men did afterwards. David Alan Gore and Fred Waterfield were first cousins and the press called them the Killing Cousins. Gore was an auxiliary deputy with the Indian River County Sheriff's Office, which is how he came by the badge and handcuffs used in later attacks; his police authority was revoked in 1981 after he was found in a parked car with a gun and binoculars, watching a woman. Between 1981 and 1983 the two abducted, raped and killed six women and girls in Indian River County: Ying Hua Ling, seventeen, and her mother Hsiang Huang Ling, forty-eight, in February 1981; Judith Kay Daley, thirty-five, in July 1981; Barbara Ann Byer and Angelica Lavallee, both fourteen, in May 1982; and Lynn Elliott, seventeen, in July 1983. Gore was arrested after a neighbour called police to report a naked girl running from a house pursued by a naked man with a gun. That was Lynn Elliott, and he shot her in the driveway. A second girl was found alive in the attic, bound.
Gore pleaded guilty to Elliott's murder, was sentenced to death and was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on April 12, 2012. Waterfield was convicted in 1984 of two counts of second degree murder, for Byer and Lavallee, and is serving two consecutive life terms with no parole eligibility until 2091. Gore's testimony was central to that conviction, and the author of this piece was one of the surviving witnesses the prosecution called. As she says, the statute of limitations had run on her own case by then.
What is not in dispute is the sequence. Two men were arrested for a rape near Vero Beach in 1976, the case was dropped, and five years later they began killing.
Her closing question stands as she asked it. She quotes a sentence published about her elsewhere, that she dropped the charges to avoid embarrassment in court, and says it is untrue and she does not know where it came from. Anyone who can tell her should get in touch.