Night Watch: The Night North Port Will Never Forget: Robbie and Jennifer Tower

In Northport, life rarely strays from ordinary, but when a family grounded in faith, love,

and service gave a kid a second chance, their lives were shattered.

And the search for answers became a race to find a killer.

Now, unexpected twist, the man on trial for stabbing his adoptive parents to death in

Sarasota County took the stand moments ago against the advice of his attorney.

The couple that lived in the house behind me, they say that they were much more than

neighbors to everyone.

They say that they were friends and a very loving couple to everyone.

Dima Dauer does have a criminal record.

He was arrested back in 2020 for felony battery inside this home.

Hi, welcome to Crime House Daily, I'm your host Katie Ring.

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Northport, Florida isn't a place that normally ends up in the headlines.

It's inland from the Gulf Coast and is a relatively new city of wide roads and low-key

neighborhoods.

To get to Northport, you have to drive through long stretches of flat landscape, lined

with palm trees and scrub on either side.

And then suddenly, you're on residential streets, where the houses are close enough to wave

at people next door.

The tower family lived on Malacoat Road, which was one of those quintessential streets.

It's a quiet residential stretch where serious police activity was extremely rare.

49-year-old Robbie James Tower and 51-year-old Jennifer Christine Tower were loved in their

community.

They valued their faith and the importance of giving back.

Not as a hobby, but as a way of life.

Jennifer was a paralegal turned realtor who built her own real estate services business,

pro-admin, and her friends described her as a go-getter with a huge heart.

Meanwhile, Robbie had that same open door spirit, but with a little mishap in it.

He's remembered for his infectious laugh, love of silly socks, and his habit of turning

neighbors into friends.

On Malacoat Road, people even called him the mayor because he hosted block parties to

bring everyone together.

Friends said their beliefs weren't something they picked away on Sundays.

They carried them into everyday life, and they built the identity of their marriage

around service.

The towers were known as a couple who really practiced what they preached.

And that's why their story has stuck with so many people.

In 2016, a new calling led them to a decision that changed their family forever.

During their missionary work in Ukraine, they met a teenage boy named Dima, who was living

in the country's orphan and foster system.

Dima's early life was heavy from the start.

His mother had died when he was young, and his father was absent and struggling with alcoholism,

which left Dima without consistent care.

He cycled through relatives' homes, foster placements, and an orphanage.

They were really landing anywhere permanent.

When Robbie and Jennifer chose to adopt him, Dima was about 14 years old.

He came to Florida, took their last name, and became their son legally and publicly.

In early photos, you see a teenager in a new country, learning a new language, trying

to fit into a culture he didn't grow up in, and being folded into a family that seemed

genuinely committed to him.

The towers viewed adoption as permanent, something you don't back out of just because it gets

hard.

Loved one said they were determined to give Dima what he had never had, a stable home,

parents who stayed, and a future that wasn't defined by what happened in his childhood.

But adoption stories aren't always neat, and the public record makes that clear in this

case.

Over time, Dima struggled to adjust.

He was allegedly starting fights at school and multiple outlets described growing tensions

inside the house.

By 2020, the tension in their household had reached law enforcement.

That year, Dima was arrested after an incident involving a violent attack towards Robbie Tower

inside of their home.

According to the affidavit, Dima allegedly threw Robbie across the kitchen while he was

putting groceries away.

The charges were later dropped, but their arrest remained a documented part of the family's

history.

Family members said that after the incident, Dima stayed for a short time with relatives

on Jennifer's side.

But he didn't stay long, and Robbie brought him back home.

Loved one's described that choice as an act of love and persistence.

Robbie was still trying to hold onto his son, and still believed their family could survive

this if they didn't give up.

A relative said Robbie and Jennifer kept forgiving him and supporting him, even buying him

a car and trying to keep his life on track.

So by the summer of 2023, Dima was no longer a kid being introduced to a new home.

He was 21, living in the same place that had been trying to hold him steady for nearly

seven years.

Then late on August 31, 2023, the quiet around that house was shattered.

Robbie and Jennifer's neighbor called 911.

She said five minutes before the call, she was jolted awake by screaming and pounding

on the door.

A woman yelling, I need help, over and over.

When the neighbor opened up, the woman was gone, but there was blood on the steps.

Enough to make it clear this wasn't a misunderstanding, a scam, or a bad dream.

In a neighborhood that's not used to commotion after dark, that kind of sound and that kind

of sight flips your whole body into panic mode.

Officers arrived shortly before midnight, minutes after the neighbor's frantic call,

and saw a man covered in blood outside of the tower's residence.

It was Dima.

According to reports, it looked like he was closing the trunk of a black car, and when

police tried to stop him, he got in the vehicle and fled the scene.

In a matter of seconds, officers went from responding to a neighbor's distress call to

a full-on pursuit.

But no one was prepared for what they were about to see inside the house.

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While the chase moved out of the subdivision and onto larger main roads, patrol cars stayed

close on him.

At the same time, another group of officers went inside the tower's house to find out

what sparked the neighbor's call.

When officers were inside, they immediately understood this wasn't a routine call.

They found blood in the master bedroom, the entryway, and the kitchen where they found

a rag that appeared to have been used to wipe up blood.

Prosecutor said that this kind of cleanup isn't what you see in a blind, uncontrolled

frenzy.

It's what you see when someone understands what they've done.

When officers stepped into the living room, they found Robbie and Jennifer towers on

the floor close together.

Her bodies were positioned head to head.

Robbie had visible puncture wounds to his upper back, and Jennifer's head was covered

in blood.

There was also blood on the living room couch.

They were quickly pronounced dead at the scene and a medical examiner confirmed they had

both suffered multiple stab wounds in a sustained sharp force attack.

Between the two, they were stabbed 147 times.

Jennifer was stabbed 79 times, and Robbie was stabbed 68 times.

The state later emphasized the number of wounds not too sensationalized, but to underline

what it said the wounds clearly showed.

This wasn't one impulse of blow, and it wasn't a quick struggle that got out of hand.

It was prolonged violence that didn't stop until both victims were dead.

All detectives secured the home and confirmed the deaths.

The manhunt for Dima continued outside.

At this point, the police were in a full-on high-speed chase with Dima.

He had driven out of Northport into the surrounding areas, and the police were hot on his tail.

Other teams cleared the scene and deployed tire deflation strips, which disabled his

car on the highway.

He jumped out immediately, abandoned the vehicle, and then ran into the nearby woods.

These brought in canine units and aviation support, and the search stretched into the early

morning hours.

Dima was missing for roughly eight hours.

Then as Don approached, police located him at a shell gas station on night trail road

in North Venice and arrested him there.

Dima Tower was charged with two counts of first degree premeditated murder and fleeing

an alluding law enforcement.

In Florida chose not to seek the death penalty.

Under state law, that meant if the jury convicted him of first degree murder, the mandatory

sentence would be life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It was clear that Dima had murdered his adoptive parents, but the challenge for prosecutors

was that in order to get a first degree murder conviction, they had to prove that the attack

was premeditated.

The case took more than two years to reach trial, but by November of 2025, Dima who is

now 24 years old was sitting at the defense table in Sarasota County, Florida.

Reporters described the courtroom as packed, but the people in the room weren't just there

to cover the story.

They were there for Robbie and Jennifer Tower.

Two people remembered for their compassion, faith, and service to their community.

From the start, both sides were clear about what this trial was and wasn't.

The defense didn't argue that Dima wasn't the attacker.

Defense attorney Mark Gilman told jurors in his opening statement that if they expected

him to say his client did nothing wrong, they were mistaken.

What he wanted them to consider, he said, was whether the attack met the standard for

premeditated first degree murder or whether it should be convicted as a lesser form of

homicide like manslaughter.

Prosecutors laid out a straight linear timeline.

They argued that the attacks began in the master bedroom while Robbie Tower was asleep.

Dima had grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen, snuck into their room while the couple

was asleep in bed, and started stabbing Robbie.

After a few initial blows, he lost his first knife so he went in the kitchen to grab a

second knife and continued the attack.

The prosecution focused on the second knife to prove premeditation.

They argued that losing one weapon, then going back to grab a second one proved this wasn't

just a crime of passion.

After losing the first knife, he had time to stop and assess what had happened and what

he was doing, but he made the conscious decision to grab a second knife and continue carrying

out the attack.

They told the jurors that Jennifer woke up to the violence and tried to protect her husband,

but quickly realized that she couldn't stop what was happening, so she ran to a neighbor's

home screaming for help.

According to the state, Dima chased her, forced her back inside, made her sit on the

living room couch and stabbed her repeatedly.

The blood found on the couch and the room's patterning was used to support that sequence.

The state also emphasized Dima's behavior afterward, they reminded jurors he was seen outside

of the home with blood on him, that he fled when police arrived, led officers on a chase

through multiple counties, ran into the woods after the tire deflation strips disabled

his car, and stayed on the run for hours until he was finally caught at a gas station.

Prosecutors argued these choices showed consciousness of guilt and a clear deliberate mind at work.

The defense asked jurors to widen their lens beyond that night.

They spent time on Dima's upbringing in Ukraine, his mother's death, years of instability,

cycling through foster care and orphanage life, and then the whiplash of moving countries

as a teenager.

They argued that trauma like that doesn't just vanish because a family tries to love you

through it.

They suggested that whatever happened on August 31st was the violent product of a mind

that had never been stable in the first place.

Dima became a decision that shifted the entire trial.

Dima chose to testify.

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It was rare and heavily advised against by most lawyers to testify in a first-degree murder

case where the penalty is life without parole, but Dema Tower took the stand anyways.

On both direct and cross-examinations, he admitted that he had stabbed both Robbie and

Jennifer Tower, that he went into their bedroom with a knife and attacked Robbie while he

was asleep.

That Jennifer ran to a neighbor's door, and he chased her down and forced her back inside.

In other words, he confirmed the core of the state's timeline in his own voice, but

even more importantly for prosecutors, he made another admission on the stand.

He said he planned the attack.

That single statement carried enormous legal weight.

Florida law does not require that premeditation be plotted for days or weeks.

Premeditation can form in a short window, seconds or minutes, as long as the intent comes

before action.

Dema's acknowledgement that the intent existed beforehand gave prosecutors direct evidence

of premeditation from the defendant himself.

Dema tried to explain the confession by describing his mental state as fractured.

He told jurors he was temporarily insane and that the rage had taken over.

He wasn't presenting a formal insanity defense that would remove responsibility.

He was trying to persuade jurors that he was too mentally unstable to truly premeditate.

The defense echoed that theme, urging jurors to think about trauma and emotional collapse

rather than calculation.

But prosecutors weren't willing to let that framing stand without scrutiny.

On cross-examination, they walked Dema through his actions step by step.

If he was out of control, why retrieve a second knife and keep stabbing?

If he was unaware of what he was doing, why chase Jennifer when she ran for help?

Why force her back inside instead of leaving the house?

Those choices prosecutors argued required awareness and decision-making.

Courtroom coverage described Dema as emotional and sometimes disruptive during trial.

On the first day of opening statements, his crying became so loud that the judge excused

the jury and warned him to compose himself.

At other points, he got combative, interrupting questioning or arguing with prosecutors

and had to be reigned back in by the court.

Those moments showed instability, but they did not erase what he admitted about planning

or what the physical evidence showed about the sequence of the killings.

In the time line itself, in acts of choosing to continue and the defendant's own words,

the state never established a confirmed motive that answers why this happened,

and prosecutors were clear that the verdict did not depend on providing one.

When it was the defendant's turn for closing arguments, they repeated that Dema's history mattered,

and that childhood trauma didn't disappear because of the fact that Dema's case was

and that childhood trauma didn't disappear because of a plane ride to America.

They claimed the trauma settled into him and shaped how he reacted to conflict,

authority, and family.

The defense asked the jury to convict on a lesser homicide charge,

but there was no way around his admissions and no dispute about the brutality of the attack.

The jury deliberated for less than two hours, and on November 14, 2025,

they returned unanimous guilty verdicts on two counts of first degree premeditated murder

and one count of fleeing and eluding.

Right afterward, the court heard victim impact statements.

Family members said the towers never stopped thinking of Dema as their son,

even after the earlier violence and the family turmoil,

and that they kept believing in him because forgiveness and persistence were part of who they were.

Judge Krueger imposed a sentence that same afternoon.

Two consecutive life without parole terms plus a five-year fleeing slash eluding sentence

concurrent with the second life term. As of now, Dema Tower is serving those consecutive

life sentences in a Florida state prison with no parole eligibility. His legal future may

include appeals, but for now, the trial verdict stands. There's no ending here that makes the

story feel neat. Robbie and Jennifer Tower met Dema as a teenager already shaped by loss.

They adopted him believing that permanence might change the path of a life that had been

unstable from the beginning. They kept trying to return to normalcy after the 2020 arrests,

and through years of conflict that didn't resolve easily. Their loved ones say they believed

family meant not giving up when things got hard, but on August 31, 2023, inside the home they

had built around that belief. The family collapsed in violence. For the Tower's family,

the verdict doesn't soften the loss. It doesn't restore the life they knew, and it doesn't rewind

years of love and effort they poured into building a family across continents.

What it does do is confirm the truth of what happened that night on Malacoat Road.

A couple remembered for compassion is gone. Their son will spend the rest of his life in prison

for killing them, and a neighborhood that used to measure time in fortulites and routines will

always remember the night everything went dark.

Thanks for listening to today's episode.

Not sure what to listen to next? Check out America's most infamous crimes hosted by Katie Ring.

From serial killers to unsolved mysteries and game-changing investigations.

Each week, Katie takes on a notorious criminal case in American history.

Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes now wherever you listen to podcasts.