Driver sent damning text before ramming strip club, killing 1 as he was kicked out: ‘I’m going to prison’
The man who killed one person when he plowed a semi-truck through a Florida strip club he had been kicked out of sent damning texts to a childhood friend before carrying out the evil revenge scheme, police allege.
“Goodbye,” wrote Dylan Fogle, according to an arrest report.
“I’m going to prison for vehicular manslaughter.”
The 25-year-old North Carolina man was charged Thursday with first-degree murder, attempted murder, vehicular homicide, DUI manslaughter and DUI with serious bodily injury.
In his mugshot, Fogle sported a busted lip and several gashes across his face that he sustained in the demented plot police said followed an argument outside the jiggly joint.
Explore More
California’s proposed billionaire tax has Silicon Valley titans fleeing for Florida — where they’re on the prowl for grand homes
Florida brute suspected in abducting, harassing Pennsylvania woman later found dead on beach
DeSantis announces special session on Florida redistricting ahead of 2026 midterms
Cops found Fogle stumbling and showing signs of impairment by alcohol when they arrived at the Emperors Gentleman Club in Tampa just before 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, a police report obtained by the Tampa Bay Times shows.
Fogle allegedly admitted to driving the semi-truck when it crashed into a group of six people, killing 44-year-old Giovanni Soto, but claimed it was an accident and that the accelerator was stuck.
Witnesses, however, revealed that Fogle may have been aiming for his drinking buddy.
Fogle, of North Carolina, and Anthony Matelsky had been inside the club together until each was separately kicked out for inappropriately touching the same dancer, according to the report.
Fogle was kicked out first and told cops he was waiting in his semi-truck for Matelsky, who became “physically confrontational” with staff after being taken outside.
Video footage showed someone push Matelsky onto his back, but he jumped back up and continued confronting the group seconds before the semi-truck rolled through the crowd.
Soto was killed at the scene. Two others were seriously injured.
Fogle allegedly admitted to driving the truck forward upon noticing the fight, but claimed he couldn’t control the vehicle.
When asked about the damning text messages, however, Fogle had no valid response, the report states.
Police previously said Fogle had “lied in wait” for at least 30 minutes for a person he was arguing with to emerge from the crowd, but did not say in the report whether that person was Matelsky.
None of the three were the maniac’s intended target, cops said.
Fogle was also hospitalized following the incident. Cops said his blood alcohol content was above the legal 0.08 limit.
The police report indicates that the semi-truck was Fogle’s and that his route had brought him to Tampa that fateful night.
According to a childhood friend, the trucking gig was his “dream job.”
“This was not something that I would expect from him. I know he tended to be on the wild side, but I would have never in a million years thought he would go through with something like that,” Angelise Ortiz, who received Fogle’s final text before the violence, told the Tampa Bay Times.
