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Deltona couple, friend targeted by 911 hoax
A New Jersey couple who just moved to Central Florida and their friend were the victims of a cruel prank on Monday night that could have ended badly.
DELTONA, Fla. - A New Jersey couple who just moved to Central Florida and their friend were the victims of a cruel prank on Monday night that could have ended badly.
"It's like I almost died for nothing," Sandile "Hunter" Mgidi said.
Volusia County sheriff's deputies pointed their guns at him and detained him over what was later determined to be a fake 911 call.
"I was terrified for the basic fact of, like, if I even break a branch wrong, I'll get shot," Mgidi said.
The Volusia Sheriff's Office confirmed dispatchers received a call Monday night from someone claiming to have shot his wife and was planning to burn the house down with his kids inside.
About a dozen deputies were dispatched to Mgidi's friends’ home near Gondolier Terrace and Apricot Drive, where he was vacationing, but it was all a hoax.
"First off, no one's married here. There's no kids or nothing. There wasn't even a bang," he said.
Deputies took the call so seriously, a neighbor told FOX 35 they took down her surveillance camera because the light was giving away their location.
"Whoever this is clearly has a dark sense of humor and a dark mind, so that's very scary," Kaitlyn Gorczyca said.
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She and her boyfriend Christopher Valentin moved into the house about a month ago from New Jersey. They weren't home the moment this happened. Now, they're terrified to be there.
"If it's targeted, if it's just a random person just calling to call, it's still very scary because my friend could have lost his life," Gorczyca said.
David Thomas, a former officer and now professor of forensic studies at Florida Gulf Coast University, says not only could someone making a fake 911 call face charges, but they could even have to pay up.
"They can charge you for all of the officers that have responded. They can charge you for the gas that was used. They can charge you for fire [services]," he said. "I would just hope that people look at what they're doing and think about it a second time before they do it."
The past three days have been restless and anxiety-inducing for these three, and they hope the person on the other line of that call gets caught.
"We definitely want to get this person and get them in trouble and hold them accountable for what they did to us because, at the end of the day, we're the victims," Gorczyca said. "We’re suffering from this."
A spokesperson with the sheriff's office says investigators haven't yet determined the identity of the 911 caller.