A Ukrainian adoptee wept in court as his lawyer detailed his troubled life before he allegedly slaughtered his “caring” American parents.
Dima Tower’s audible sobs filled the courtroom in Sarasota, Fla., on Wednesday as defense attorney Marc Gilman acknowledged his client — who faces two first-degree murder charges in the August 2023 deaths of Jennifer and Robbie Tower — is not an innocent man.
“This trial is going to be a little bit different,” Gilman told the jury in his opening statement, according to CourtTV. “If you’re expecting that I’m going to stand here and say that Mr. Tower is not guilty of anything, you’d be incorrect.”
Gilman brought up the different levels of murder and homicide, but was interrupted when Tower, 21, burst into tears as he held his face in his hands.
Judge Thomas Krug told Gilman to continue, but interrupted him again and claimed that Tower’s sobs were making it hard for anyone to hear.
Gilman returned to Tower as the suspected murderer blew his nose.
The 12th Judicial Circuit jurist ordered the jury out of the courtroom before reprimanding Tower to control himself.
“I just excused the jury, it had got to the point the defendant, in crying and using Kleenex was disrupting the jury trial. Mr. Tower, I won’t allow that to continue, so take a moment, compose yourself and we’ll get started in five or so minutes,” Krug said.
When the court reconvened, Gilman asked the jury to consider evidence about premeditation and then find Tower guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder.
Tower is accused of attacking his parents with a steak knife as they slept inside their North Port home on Aug. 31, 2023.
During the brutal slayings, he allegedly lost the first knife, retrieved a second one and continued to stab Robbie Tower, 49.
Jennifer Tower, 51, attempted to protect her husband before running away from the alleged killer.
Tower caught up to his adoptive mom, brought her back inside the house and allegedly stabbed her multiple times as she sat on a couch.
A neighbor called 911 because of the screaming she heard in the middle of the night.
Tower attempted to clean up the scene before fleeing and leading police on an eight-hour chase.
He was captured and told detectives “rage” led to the brutal attack.
Tower was placed in Ukrainian foster care when his family “didn’t want to deal with him” after his mother’s death when he was younger.
He lived in the war-torn country before “two strangers” picked him up when he was 14 and brought him to America, Gilman said.
“I’m basically a nobody coming from nowhere,” Tower said, according to the defense attorney.
Police had been called to the home years before the double slayings because Tower allegedly attacked his adoptive parents.
In one case, Tower allegedly assaulted his father and was sent to live with relatives on his mother’s side for a short time before Robbie Tower brought him back home.
“That’s how much he loved him,” Robbie Tower’s uncle, Warren Rines, told The Post in 2023. “They forgave him for everything. They bought him a car, whatever he wanted or needed.”
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