‘It doesn’t feel real’: Church mourns pastor killed in dispute with neighbor

The Rev. Nick Davi of Grace Point Church and his wife, Sarah, were shot in front of their children outside their home Dec. 29.

Sarah Davi, identified in her husband’s church biography, wrestled a gun away from the alleged shooter, police said, and was expected to recover.

Their next-door neighbor, Joe Junio, 36, is facing charges of murder, attempted murder, shooting a gun where a person might be endangered, and two counts of child abuse involving a gun.

Nick Davi was eulogized two days after the shooting in a sorrowful sermon titled “Sunday Gathering, a Lament” that was broadcast online from Grace Point Church, where fellow pastors struggled to maintain their composure.

“We lost a brother,” said the Rev. Ty Neal, stifling tears. “We lost a pastor, and we lost a friend.”

Neal preached about confusion, God’s love and compassion, and faith’s contradictions in which followers are allowed to question why horrible things can happen to good people.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Neal said about the tragedy. “It just feels like this is just a bad dream in which we will wake up to and Nick will be there.”

Neal spoke about “tensions” between good and evil.

Neal highlighted some of the allegations against Junio investigators presented in a police report released this week.

The shooting was reported about 4:30 p.m. Dec. 29 in the 6600 block of Lookout Lodge Lane, a neighborhood of condos near Deer Springs and Aviary ways. The shooting was partially captured on one of the victims’ child’s cellphone.

Police said Junio pulled up to the neighborhood, exchanged words with the victims, got out of her car armed with a handgun, and opened fire.

After Davi was shot, police said, another victim, whose name was redacted, “went to the other side of the car and tackled Joe and fought with her over the gun,” police wrote in the arrest report. That’s around the time Davi’s wife also was shot, police said.

“You turned into a grizzly bear, momma,” Davi’s son told his mother, Neal said.

Neal added: “Man, what would have happened if she didn’t.”

Police said the neighbors’ dispute began months ago when the family reported Junio to their home owner’s association “for violations in relation to chickens and dogs.”

In the weeks prior to the shooting, police said, Junio had been “engaging in escalating threatening behavior,” which led the victims to call police twice because Junio had allegedly thrown rocks and feces in their property.

The couple had also accused the suspect of flooding their home, and they filed for a restraining order, police said.

Neal and police said that the family — feeling “terrorized” by Junio — had relocated and had only stopped at home to pick up belongings.

Davi was born in New York and earned a bachelor’s degree in marine science and biology at the University of Tampa, working at large public aquariums in Florida, Mississippi and Nevada, according to a biography posted on the church’s website.

He married his wife in 2005, and they had two children.

In 2014, Davi became the church’s pastor of operations, overseeing the 30,000-square-foot facility at 3794 W. Ann Road.

“He touched the lives of countless people in his short time with us,” a family member wrote on a GoFundMe campaign organized to help the surviving family find a new home. “We are all shocked and saddened by this senseless tragedy.”

On Sunday, the Rev. Tim Fraiser of Grace Point said Davi would’ve been the most fitting person to help the congregation through the pain.

“He’s actually one of the most pastoral pastors that you’ll ever meet,” Fraiser said. “He was just like us, but he knew how to be present, he knew how to just sit with someone in those moments.”

Grace Point scheduled a memorial at the church for 1 p.m. Jan. 15. It will also be broadcast live on the church’s YouTube channel.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.