Mike Gonzalez Death News: Famous Miami detective Mike Gonzalez Dies At 95

Mike Gonzalez Death News: Famous Miami detective Mike Gonzalez Dies At 95

For forty years, police detective Mike Gonzalez was without a doubt Miami’s premier homicide investigator. Long before DNA testing and video surveillance, Gonzalez solved crimes the old-fashioned way by following up on leads, speaking to witnesses, and cajoling suspects into confessing. He shot a man who was avoiding a 10-cent toll, killing a Florida Highway Patrol officer in the process. He came across a huge cocaine network while looking into another homicide. More than ten years after a woman’s body was found murdered and naked in her bed, the murderer confessed to Gonzalez. He admitted to perpetrating a second murder two years earlier.

Known Miami Herald crime writer and author Edna Buchanan once referred to him as the greatest of the best and stated, “He has solved more murders than anyone else in the world other than Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter.” More than three decades after his retirement as the head of Miami’s homicide bureau, Gonzalez passed away peacefully last week at his home in South Miami-Dade in the presence of family members, including his wife Gloria. He was 95.

“Mike never solved a case using recent advances in DNA. Nevertheless, he personally solved more murder cases with verbal cunning than dozens of DNA investigators have done to date, according to retired Miami Police Department Lt. Jerry Green. “Mike lived a long and significant life for Miami and the MPD.”

On December 21, 1926, Gonzalez was born in Brooklyn, New York. Before arriving to Miami in 1946 and joining the Miami Police Department five years later, he served in the Merchant Marines during World War II. By 1956, he had been lured into killing from the streets. As Miami changed from a sleepy village to one of the world’s centers of drug smuggling, his notoriety and case count there soon soared.

Gonzalez came across a big cocaine network while looking into a case involving the 1980 “execution-style” murders of Miami’s director of cultural affairs Aurea Poggio and three other individuals.

In 1984, someone beat George Napoles in the head with a baseball bat on the Rickenbacker Causeway before robbing and raping the woman he was with.

He found an immediate solution to this situation. Leads were hard to come by. Gonzalez revealed to the public that the murderer’s car lacked a rear window. The following day, Ricky Roberts was charged with the crime. His jury had recommended death. Gonzalez established himself as a local law enforcement legend by displaying a great eye for detail and patience. He built relationships with the press, medical examiners, his fellow investigators, and even the suspects he was after. Gonzalez prioritized employing gentleness to persuade murderers, according to his former comrades. He kept a small notice in a frame on the wall of his office as a reminder.

Confesor Gonzalez, a former Miami homicide investigator, referred to him as the “mentor of mentors.” He was pleasant. He wasn’t soft, though.

You admired him because he had a strong character and was a powerful man, Gonzalez recalled. Although Confesor would call Mike his “uncle,” the two were not related. “He deserved our allegiance and respect,” we said. Nelson Andreu, a retired Miami police officer who worked on cases involving murderers connected to the infamous Cocaine Cowboys, described him as “one of my best instructors” and the “dean of Miami homicide.”

When dealing with interrogations, he would constantly advise, “Give it five or 10 minutes when you think you’re about to give up because you’re not getting anything,” Andreu said. “The extra time and perseverance helped in gathering so many confessions,” the author said.

Gonzalez acted as the guide for a group of detectives that gained notoriety for apprehending murderers by inspiring them to pursue homicide. One of them is Delrish Moss, who spent many years as a homicide investigator for the Miami Police Department before assuming the role of police chief in the unrest-ridden Missouri city of Ferguson. Gonzalez deserves praise for his choice of profession. The man claimed that Mike showed genuine concern for me and my development by ensuring I attended several schools.

Moss, a Black police officer, recalled a time when Gonzalez gently questioned him about a picture of civil rights activist Malcolm X he had on his desk despite several of his coworkers cursing it out.

He came up and asked more questions. According to Moss, he then started reading works of literature about Malcolm X. Gonzalez eventually climbed the ladder. He was the lieutenant when a rookie detective named Eunice Cooper joined the unit in 1988.

“When I initially started working in homicide, Mike was a legend. It was an honor to be around him, according to Cooper, who is currently an investigator with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Gonzalez may appear severe, but she had a strong memory of him as always being collected and cool. On her second day in murder, there had been a mistake with the transfer paperwork. While Gonzalez and Cooper were on the phone, Gonzalez overheard Cooper telling a patrol supervisor to call roll. Gonzalez growled at the patrol chief while snatching the woman’s phone from her hand. She was now committing murder, he said. No grabbing. He was “fiercely protective of his people,” Cooper said.