Updated May 30
Jared Ravizza, the Vineyard man accused of a stabbing spree Saturday on the South Shore, had a simple answer when asked why he later led state troopers on a high speed chase that ended in a fiery crash of his SUV.
Rushed to the South Shore Hospital in an ambulance, Ravizza told an emergency room nurse that “he wanted to have fun tonight, and he was running from the police because he wanted to have some fun.”
Those details and others emerged in police reports and court records released this week in a bizarre case that has transfixed many on the Vineyard, where Ravizza, 26, lived since about 2021.
He now faces 14 criminal charges as officials accused him of wounding six people with a knife in two seemingly random attacks on the South Shore, set an arraignment date for him in Edgartown for allegedly attacking his father, and identified him as the focus of a homicide investigation in Connecticut.
While in the emergency room, Ravizza told the attending physician, Dr. Wayne Chin, that his 2018 Porsche Macan topped out at 150 miles per hour during the chase, according to the police report.
But Ravizza said he quickly lost control of the speeding vehicle and claimed that it rolled six times before coming to a stop.
Police did not confirm Ravizza’s speed or say how many times the Porsche flipped on Cotuit Road in Sandwich. News photos show firefighters spraying the wreck, which was shattered in the front and rear. One wheel was splayed out to the side.
Dr. Chin said Ravizza suffered only “superficial scratches” in the crash, but that doctors had to remove four taser probes that police fired at him before he was taken into custody.
Trooper Daniel Shea and Braintree police detective James Lindelof entered the emergency room several hours later and found Ravizza wearing a neck brace and lying in a hospital bed. After Lindelof read him his Miranda Rights, which advise a suspect of the right to remain silent and to have access to a lawyer, Ravizza refused to speak to them.
Ravizza similarly remained silent during two separate hearings Tuesday when he was arraigned in Plymouth District Court for allegedly using a kitchen knife to slash two employees of a nearby McDonald’s restaurant on Route 3 in Braintree. His lawyers filed a plea of not guilty in the case.
One of the victims, Eliamny Garcia, had only arrived in the United States early last week and Saturday, when the attack occurred, was her first day at work. She was midway through her 8 am to 7 pm shift at the McDonald’s when she heard “a commotion” coming from the drive-through window, she told police in Spanish.
Moments later, she told police, she saw Ravizza enter the front door. She said he looked like “a homeless person,” with shaggy, shoulder-length blond hair and no shirt.
It was then that she noticed he was carrying a knife that looked about nine-inches long.
“Ms. Garcia stated that the suspect was holding the knife above his head and she saw him start to run or walk quickly towards her,” the police report said. When she retreated, “she was stabbed by the suspect near the potato machine… She put her hands and arms up in a defensive posture and the suspect stabbed her in a diagonal north to south motion.”
Police later applied a tourniquet to her arm to stop the bleeding, and an ambulance took her to a nearby hospital.
Shortly before Garcia was attacked, according to the restaurant’s video surveillance, Ravizza drove up to the drive-through window in his Porsche and ordered two double cheeseburgers, a small order of French Fries, and a McFlurry through the speaker.
Igor Marques, 29, was shift commander at the restaurant. Dressed in a yellow vest, he handed the bag of food through the window but the driver “yelled at him” and said he would not pay for the food unless the order was correct, he told police.
When Marques checked the bag, and then replaced the contents, “Ravizza pulled out a knife… then plunged it at him” in a downward motion that hit his left arm, Marques said. Ravizza then grabbed the brown paper bag and pulled away from the window.
Marques told police that Ravizza “looked like a man and a woman at the same time, had long blond hair, pink fingernails and… looked stressed.”
Another witness, Dorrie Young, described Ravizza as “appearing like a 1970s rock star” because of his bare chest, long blond hair and “wild” colored, baggy pants. She noticed him outside the restaurant urinating.
“Young stated that she was startled, surprised and taken off guard by this” as she saw his private parts, she told police. She said Ravizza “had a ‘big expression’ on his face, which she later described to be akin to Jack Nicholson’s expression in The Shining.”
Ravizza is now in custody and undergoing psychiatric evaluation at Bridgewater State Hospital, a medium-security facility for male patients that is surrounded by high fences and multiple coils of barbed wire.
A court-approved forensic psychologist, Dr. Kimberly Bistis, told Plymouth County District Court Judge Shelby Smith that Ravizza suffers from an “active psychotic illness.” She said he has “serious delusions” that his family is involved with the Mafia, and that he believed he was controlled by “outside forces.”
Dr. Bistis said Ravizza did not have the mental capacity to work with his attorney. Smith ordered him held without bail at Bridgewater until the next hearing, on June 17.
In recent years, Ravizza posted photos of himself online at Aquinnah beaches, behind the wheel of his Porsche in Chilmark, and with a poodle at Edgartown’s historic Dr. Daniel Fisher House.
But many details of his Island life remained murky. He legally changed his name twice in the past two years, and was arrested in West Tisbury in April for allegedly assaulting his father and destroying property. He is due to be arraigned on those charges on July 22.
Ravizza variously claimed to be a male model, a professional skier, a philanthropist, and the founder of a digital marketing company called Ravizza Jones. The company was only registered this January to his father’s address in West Tisbury, according to state records.
His father, Jason Ravizza, a sports psychologist, lived at the house at the time, but does not own it. A man answering his cell phone hung up when an MV Times reporter called on Wednesday. Two phone numbers for Jared Ravizza have been disconnected.
Ravizza used other addresses after his arrest Saturday. He told police in Plymouth, after the McDonald’s attack, that his home was in Agawam, near Springfield, where he grew up and went to high school.
A separate criminal complaint in Quincy District Court, where Ravizza has been charged with stabbing four girls at an AMC movie theater, shows his address as 4 State Road in Chilmark — the address of the U.S. Post Office. He does not even have a Post Office box there.
Connecticut State Police are separately investigating Ravizza in connection with the death of a 70-year-old man in Deep River, a small town in the southern part of the state. The body of Bruce Feldman was found outside a house Saturday afternoon after police responded to a report of an “audible disturbance.”
Connecticut State Police classified the case as an active homicide investigation, and said criminal charges are “pending” while Ravizza is in custody in Massachusetts.
In a statement, the police said Ravizza and his car were seen at the house earlier in the day, and he apparently had thrown a shovel through a window. “Personal items belonging to Ravizza were located at the scene, and witnesses provided a description consistent with that of Ravizza,” the police said.
MV Times staff writer Eunki Seonwoo reported from Plymouth. Times staff writer Hayley Duffy also contributed to this story.
