Davis Islands shooting victim had been accused of sexual assault, stalking

TAMPA — Mishay Simpson was jolted awake in the early hours of Aug. 20 when the alarm system in her Davis Islands home went off. Her husband, Rhett Simpson, was out of town. Alone with her young daughter, she could hear someone running up the stairs outside her bedroom door.

She grabbed a gun. The door opened and a man stood there. When he spoke, she recognized the voice as Andrew Tyler Noll, a man she had accused of stalking her.

Simpson fired the gun, closed the door and called 911.

Her account of the Aug. 20 shooting is told in a court petition she filed this month seeking an injunction for protection. It was the second time she asked the court to tell Noll to stay away from her. A week before the shooting, Simpson accused the 23-year-old bartender of bumping her car in traffic and threatening to "hurt me and my family and my daughter."

As Tampa police continue to investigate the shooting that wounded Noll, police reports and court records tell an alarming story of three separate cases in which Noll has been accused of aggressive behavior toward women.

Two, including Simpson, called it stalking. One called it sexual assault.

But thus far, none of the cases have yielded criminal charges.

• • •

In mid January, Dianndra Loux moved into an apartment at 515 Columbia Drive, down the hall from Noll. He saw her walking a dog and introduced himself.

They talked briefly. He asked for her phone number, a police report stated, and she gave it to him. Noll sent her a text message asking her out, according to the report. Loux replied that she wasn't interested because she already had a boyfriend.

Noll responded with a barrage of 39 more text messages to Loux, according to the report. In one, he called her a "fat bitch" and told her that she "wasn't going to like living at her apartment now," the report stated. In another, he wrote that "her life was going to be hell if she calls the police," the report read.

He also called her 15 to 20 times, according to the report. She didn't pick up.

On Jan. 25, Loux's brother, Tyler, visited her with a friend for the day's Gasparilla festivities. That afternoon, Noll, wearing only underwear, confronted the two men outside her apartment, the report stated.

Noll threatened them, they told police. They told him to back off. Noll said he was going to have sex with Loux anyway, according to the report.

Loux later called the police.

"I am in fear of losing my life," she wrote in a court petition. "He has exhibited a violent/raging behavior towards me to the point that I am scared to even walk to my car."

Days later, a judge granted Loux an injunction for protection.

• • •

Before 1 a.m. on March 4, Tampa police officers pulled into the Davis Islands 7-Eleven gas station, where a woman stood crying.

She told them that hours earlier she had pulled up next to a man riding a motorcycle at Hyde Park Boulevard and Brorein Avenue. They began to flirt, the woman said. He gave her his phone number. She called and they agreed to meet at Yeoman's Road Pub on E Davis Boulevard.

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She got to the bar just before midnight and met Noll, who smelled of alcohol, the report stated. They walked to the waterfront and chatted before she agreed to go to his apartment to smoke marijuana, according to the report.

When they got there, she sat on a couch. He tried to climb on her and began kissing her neck, the report stated. She told him to stop. He put his hand down her pants, the report stated. She struggled to get away.

The woman left and ran to the 7-Eleven, where she called police.

Weeks later, a detective interviewed Noll, who gave a similar account, the report stated. But when the woman told him to stop, he did, he said.

Noll also claimed that the woman had returned to his apartment in the weeks after the encounter. He said she offered to stop cooperating with authorities if he paid her $1,000, according to the report. He said he refused, but that they later had sex. He also showed the detective his cellphone, which had two recent missed calls and a handful of text messages from the woman, the report stated.

When police tried to reinterview the woman, she said she no longer wanted to pursue charges, the report said. She said she thought she misled Noll into thinking she would have sex with him.

The case was dropped.

• • •

Noll could not be reached for comment for this story.

His only criminal history in Florida relates to an arrest for domestic battery in 2011. In that case, a man described as Noll's "boyfriend" said Noll attacked him during an argument, according to a police report. The charge was dropped after Noll attended a domestic violence diversion program.

An arrest report in the case noted his occupation as a self-employed dancer.

His Facebook page includes numerous selfies. In some, he poses in underwear, showing off elaborate tattoos.

Times researcher John Martin and staff writer Arielle Waldman contributed to this report. Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.