Self-defense claim in Boca murder case unravels on stand as son details plan to kill dad
WEST PALM BEACH — No one who testified during Jared Noiman's murder trial incriminated him more than Noiman did himself.
During cross-examination, he unraveled the story his attorneys told of an abused and frightened Noiman who, in a moment of distress, believed he had no choice but to stab his sleeping father 27 times. Noiman described instead the careful steps he took to end his father's life.
"I weirdly heard this woman's voice in my head. It said, 'Why don't you kill your dad?' " he said from the witness stand. "I was like, 'Oh, I don't know. I mean, I guess I'm having a lot of problems with him, so maybe.' "
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Noiman said he bought a knife and garbage bags that he hoped were big enough to carry a corpse. He dug a hole on the beach to bury the body. He drank coffee to stay awake after his father fell asleep. He took off his shoes to creep toward the mat where Jay Noiman lay. He stabbed his dad until the handle of his knife broke off, then strangled him with gloved hands.
"I didn't want to leave fingerprints," Noiman said, to which Assistant State Attorney Daniel Reiter responded: "Right. You don't want to get caught when you kill him in self defense — right?"
"Right," Noiman said.
Jurors convicted Noiman of first-degree murder on May 15, paving the way for a potential life sentence. Circuit Judge James Nutt will sentence him on June 3.
Noiman, 31, killed his 59-year-old father in a beachside parking garage in Boca Raton. The father and son were homeless, showering at LA Fitness and living in a cluttered Ford Explorer. Noiman told police he slept inside the SUV while his father slept outside, using the SUV's floor mats as makeshift bedding.
In the wake of his murder, Jay Noiman's friends said Jay had moved to Boca Raton and drained his finances trying to support Noiman, who had with a history of mental illness and a lengthy rap sheet.
'Jay would have done anything for Jared," Linda Sakkal, an ex-girlfriend of Jay's, said in a 2020 interview with The Palm Beach Post. "He was a dedicated father who ended up giving his life trying to help his son.'
Noiman's team of attorneys painted a different picture. Assistant Public Defender Courtney Wilson said Noiman had learned to fear his father after years of disturbing behavior and emotional abuse.
She described a domineering father who kept his son isolated from friends and family, who mocked his efforts to find work, who controlled his money, and who once left him stranded at a park with no way home. Noiman said his father began making inappropriate comments in the weeks before the killing — a shift that he said made him feel unsafe.
'He started saying weird things,' Noiman testified. 'About special relationships between a father and son. I didn't want that. I didn't know what he was going to do.'
He said he bought the gloves, the trash bags and the knife "just in case."
A passerby found Jay Noiman's body between two parking spaces in the One Ocean Plaza parking garage at about 7:30 a.m. on Feb. 3, 2020 — less than a month after Noiman's 26th birthday. The broken knife lay nearby.
Garage security-camera video showed a man walk slowly toward where Jay's body was found at about 2:40 a.m.
"Your plan was to sneak up to him while he was sleeping, right?" Reiter asked during Noiman's murder trial.
"Yeah," Noiman said.
Delray Beach police pulled Noiman over for an expired tag an hour after his father's murder. He blamed the blood covering his cheeks, arms, pants, ankles and bare feet on a nosebleed and mosquito bites, then said he'd gotten into a fist fight with a man in a hoodie. Officers cited him for driving without a valid license, called paramedics to assess him and left.
Boca Raton police pulled Noiman over hours later for the same expired tag, but this time, they cuffed him. At the Boca Raton police station, Noiman said he did not have a relationship with his father and hadn't seen him in years.
He returned to the Boca Raton police department the following day and confessed to killing his father. He didn't mention the recent advances, nor the years of manipulation and control that his attorneys said convinced him that his only course of action was "to do what he did."
"I didn't tell them absolutely everything," he told the jury. "I was kind of embarrassed about it."
The jurors didn't believe him.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida man stabbed his sleeping father 27 times and claimed self defense
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