He was waiting.

The morning that Philip Gattuso was killed by multiple blows to the head with a hammer, an hour before the 49-year-old dropped his daughter off at day care, a truck and a trailer police believe were driven by the man accused of murdering him arrived at The Bowler.

From the south Fargo bowling alley a block south of Gattuso’s condominium, the truck’s driver was caught on video walking across 26th Avenue South toward an A&W Restaurant. A&W security video then showed a person crossing its parking lot toward a spot where there’s a clear view of Gattuso’s garage and front door.

Gattuso took his daughter to day care at 8:30 a.m., then missed a teleconference he’d set for 10:30 a.m. At some point in those two hours, police think Gattuso came home and was beaten in the head with a hammer by Michael Allen Nakvinda, a 41-year-old Oklahoma City man with a violent criminal past.

Cass County prosecutors charged Nakvinda on Monday with murder, robbery, burglary and theft, accusing him of killing the Fargo dentist and stealing his 1999 Porsche Boxster convertible as well as an assortment of consumer electronics – including phones, cameras and two laptop computers.

An arrest warrant issued at 4:52 a.m. Saturday for Nakvinda details when and where the suspect was seen before and after the killing and was included in court records with the charges filed against him.

Using witnesses, security video, photo lineups and the help of Oklahoma police, Fargo police sketched a rough timeline of Oct. 26, the day Gattuso was found dead in his Fargo condo.

It stretches from early morning to about 2 p.m., when security video at a rest stop 2½ miles south of the North Dakota-South Dakota border captures a man driving a trailer that was rented to Nakvinda entering the rest stop with an empty black garbage bag and a change of clothing. A red stain was on the left thigh of the man’s pants.

Nakvinda was arrested on Saturday morning in Oklahoma City, where he made a court appearance Monday and waived his right to fight extradition. Authorities here now have 10 days to bring him back, which Fargo Police Chief Keith Ternes said would be done by the Cass County Sheriff’s Office.

Police allege in the warrant that Nakvinda had at least two interactions with witnesses on his way out of town toward Oklahoma City, where the Porsche was found Monday in a storage facility.

One was at the rest stop, where Caroll Ray Griffith told police he saw a man driving a dark Chevrolet pickup pulling a U-Haul trailer repeatedly checking the tarp covering the car he was hauling.

The man, who Griffith later picked out of a lineup as Nakvinda, told the witness the car was a 1999 Porsche Boxster he’d bought over the Internet for $12,000 and had driven to Canada to pick up. Griffith said the repeated checking of the tarp made him think the man was nervous.

A second man with Griffith, Darwin Lusty, didn’t speak to the pickup driver but chose two photos out of a lineup, one of which was Nakvinda. Police matched a driver’s license photo of Nakvinda with an image of the driver taken from the rest-stop security video.

There was another interaction earlier in the day.

At about 10:52 a.m., security video from The Bowler shows a car that matches the size and shape of Gattuso’s driving east on 26th Avenue South before slowing down to pull into a paved parking garage area. Four minutes later, footage from the same camera has the pickup and trailer that were parked at the alley at 7:29 a.m. driving to where the car had just been taken.

Jamie Viker, a woman looking out the back window of her home, saw a dark green pickup hitched to a trailer with a car. She went outside to dump her trash and spoke to a man lying under the trailer, who told her that the car had been bought on eBay.

Viker told police the car was silver with a black cover and had the word “Boxster” on its back end. In a search of vehicles registered in Cass County, Fargo investigators found that Gattuso’s was the only silver 1999 Porsche Boxster.

An employee who works at the dental office adjacent to Gattuso’s home – not his own former practice that he recently sold – said she saw Gattuso’s car backing out of his driveway, though she didn’t see the driver.

The witness, Deborah Cook, told police she recognized the car because she has seen it many times.

Surveillance tape from The Bowler showed a truck and trailer hauling a car that matches the description of Gattuso’s pulling away at about 11:31 a.m.

A similar truck with a trailer carrying a covered car was seen between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. by Tom Frankel as he worked out on a treadmill at MeritCare Southpointe.

At the Interstate 29 rest stop in South Dakota, video shows the man identified by the two witnesses there with a trailer bearing the license plate E851796. Investigators from the Oklahoma told Fargo detectives working the case that Nakvinda rented a U-Haul with those plates from Oct. 23 to Oct. 27.

Timeline

Oct. 23

• 3:49 p.m. – U-Haul records in Oklahoma show Michael Nakvinda rented a tandem trailer.

Oct. 26

• 7:29 a.m. – A black Chevy club cab pickup with a flatbed U-Haul trailer attached to it is seen on surveillance cameras pulling into The Bowler parking lot in Fargo. An occupant of the vehicle is then seen crossing 26th Avenue on foot, heading north in the direction of Gattuso’s condominium complex.

  Review of the A&W restaurant surveillance video shows a person walking through the parking lot to the north, to a location from which there is a clear view of the garage and front door of Gattuso’s condominium.

• 8:30 a.m. – Gattuso drives his silver 1999 Porsche Boxster to drop off his 3-year-old daughter at day care.
• 9 a.m. – Bowler employee arrives at work and observes a Chevy pickup, with an Oklahoma license plate, attached to a flatbed U-Haul trailer in the northeast corner of the business’s north parking lot.
• 10:30 – Gattuso is scheduled for a teleconference with a dentistry employment consultant but misses the phone call and doesn’t return any follow-up calls.
• Between 10:30 and 10:40 a.m. – An employee of the dental office neighboring Gattuso’s home observes the silver Porsche backing out of the driveway. She did not see who was driving the vehicle.
• 10:52 a.m. – The Bowler surveillance video shows a light-colored vehicle matching the size and shape of the victim’s car traveling east on 26th Avenue.
• 10:56 a.m. – Video surveillance shows the dark pickup and tandem trailer leaving The Bowler parking lot and backing into the paved parking garage area at the condominium complex.
• 11 a.m. – A woman living nearby reports looking out her back window and seeing an older 1990s-style pickup pulling a car on a trailer. She went outside to dump her trash and spoke to a man who told her the vehicle had been bought on eBay and he said he was just delivering it.
• 11 to 11:30 a.m. – A man exercising on a treadmill at the MeritCare Southpointe medical facility at the intersection 32nd Avenue South and 25th Street told police he saw a dark blue extended cab pickup traveling westbound and pulling a tandem trailer loaded with a car covered with a tarp.
• 11:31 a.m. – Bowler surveillance shows the pickup pulling the trailer leaving a nearby parking lot and heading west. An additional camera shows the same vehicle and tandem trailer driving south on University Drive.
• 2 p.m. – A man reports he observed a dark or black Chevy pickup with a U-Haul trailer carrying a vehicle covered with a tarp while at a South Dakota rest stop about 2½ miles south of the North Dakota border. The pickup had an Oklahoma license plate and was driven by a white man, 6 to 6 feet 1 inch tall, 45 to 50 years old, with brown wavy hair and a slender or thin build.

  The driver told him the car was a 1999 Porsche Boxster that he purchased online for $12,000 and had traveled to Canada to pick up. The man said a tarp completely covered the vehicle, license plates and wheels. The driver appeared nervous and repeatedly checked the tarp.

  Surveillance video from the rest stop shows the man and the driver of the pickup interacting. A pickup truck and tandem trailer – along with its license plate – also appears in the video.

  In addition, video shows the driver entering the rest stop with an empty black garbage bag and a change of clothing. The person also has what appears to be a red stain on his left pant thigh. The man is seen exiting the rest stop wearing a different shirt and pants while carrying a black garbage bag with items in it.

Oct. 27