Several Villagers are on a witness list to testify for the attacker accused of landing a fatal punch last year at a country club in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown.
The defense has filed the witness list as it prepares for the trial of 76-year-old Robert Edward Moore of the Village of Polo Ridge.
Moore is accused of delivering a fatal blow to 87-year-old Dean William Zook, who died in July 2023 while in hospice care at UF Health-Shands Hospital in Gainesville. Zook was allegedly attacked by Moore in the parking lot of Glenview Country Club. Moore was apparently enraged on the evening of June 28, 2023 when he walked out of the country club and believed that Zook’s vehicle had struck his black Lexus in the parking lot. Moore allegedly began punching Zook, before realizing it wasn’t his Lexus.
There are 14 names on the defense’s witness list. Five of the witnesses live on Barbados Place, the same street where Moore has resided since 2016.
Also on the list is expert witness Dr. Bruce Goldberger of the UF College of Medicine, who offered possible clues of Moore’s defense in a recent deposition. The list also includes a man from East Granby, Conn. and a man from Mattapoisett, Mass. There are also women from Pembroke Pins, Rockledge and Plantation.
On that fateful night at the country club, a call was placed to 911 and deputies found Zook and his wife in the country club parking lot. The Villages Public Safety Department also responded to the scene after Zook began slurring his words and stumbled. He was transported by ambulance to UF Health-The Villages Hospital then flown to UF Health-Shands Hospital in Gainesville. At the time, he was “unresponsive.” He was placed on hospice care at Shands on July 15, 2023 and died the following day, “due to the trauma he sustained from being punched,” according to the arrest report.
Zook’s alleged attacker fled the country club parking lot prior to the arrival of law enforcement.
A detective tracked down the Massachusetts native thanks in part to the now-infamous photo of Moore showing off his hole-in-one at the Tarpon Boil Executive Golf Course, originally published in Villages-News.com. The detective also used surveillance images of Moore in the country club, where he bumped into a server carrying a tray of drinks, knocking a drink onto a patron, sitting at the bar.
