FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - Things took a stunning and tragic turn for a Fort Lauderdale couple when a man was shot and killed on the back patio of his boyfriend’s home shortly after the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, police said.
Speaking with 7News on Friday, Chris Dillon said he wasn’t expecting his boyfriend, Angel Nunez, to show up just before 12 a.m. on Tuesday.
“At 11:58, I hear [beeping, someone typing in] my door code, and only one [other] person knows that code,” said Dillon. “My heart soared. I knew he would come back, but I didn’t know what time it was — 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock. I had no idea.”
Dillon said Nunez told him he wanted to make sure he wasn’t along when the clock struck 12.
“He goes, ‘And I was not going to leave you alone for that New Year’s kiss,” said Dillon as he fought back tears.
The couple headed to the back patio of Dillon’s home and shared that first kiss of 2025.
“I thought, ‘Man, if I didn’t love this guy before, I sure love him [now].’ What a sweet kid. He was always a sweet man,” said Dillon.
But then, Dillon said, he saw a flas, and Nunez fell to the ground. For a split second, he thought maybe he’d been hit with a piece of a firework.
“And I bent down, ‘Angel, Angel, Angel, what’s going on?’ You know, slapping him a little bit, hugging him, kissing him, I was like, ‘Hey, Angel, come on, come on, come on,’ shaking him,” he said. “I thought maybe like a rocket had rushed him, scared him, he passed out. I don’t know.”
It was no firework, but a bullet that had pierced Nunez’s side. He did not survive.
As of Friday night, Fort Lauderdale Police said they do not know where the bullet came from. One theory is that it was a stray fired in celebration.
“I don’t understand this cultural thing that you think it’s fun to shoot a gun up in the air and scream, ‘Everybody get out of the way,’ or whatever they do. I don’t know,” said Dillon.
About 20 minutes after Nunez was struck, about three miles away, Mike Stokes and his family were watching fireworks poolside. His daughter walked out to join them.
“She jerked back and heard a – I mean, we could hear literally the whizzing,” said Stokes.
The next day, Stokes said, they found abullet in their pool.
“Lo and behold, here we go,” he is heard saying in the cellphone video as a family member held the bullet in her hand.
“It could have been one foot from disaster. You never expected something is going to come out of the sky and kill you,” said Stokes, “and these people don’t even know they’ve probably killed someone.”
Someone like Nunez.
“He is perhaps the kindest person I’ve ever known, and he loved helping people,” he said. “It’s mind-boggling, it’s so uncalled for, because it killed a 10-year-old and killed my boyfriend.”
Dillon has known loss before. He lost a husband and a sister, and now, at the dawn of 2025, he is grappling with this senseless loss.
Nunez was 50 years old. He leaves behind two adult daughters.
Dillon said his boyfriend was so close to his mother, that right when he fell down, his mother was calling him to wish him a Happy New Year.
If you have any information on this shooting, call Fort Lauderdale Police at 954-828-5700 or Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS. Remember, you can always remain anonymous, and you may be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000.
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