Newberry man arrested for burglary near UF campus

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – David Russell Nantz III, 34, of Newberry, was arrested yesterday on a warrant for burglary of a home across the street from the UF campus.

On March 5, the victim reported to the Gainesville Police Department that a back window of the house had been broken and opened, and a laptop and headphones were stolen from inside the house. A sprinkler head and propane tank were also stolen from outside the house.

Surveillance cameras in the area reportedly show two people wandering around the outside of the house on March 4. At 12:42 p.m., a silver car can be seen outside the house, and Nantz can be seen getting out of the driver’s seat and walking around the front of the house, where he allegedly removed a sprinkler head from the front landscaping.

Eight minutes later, a woman can be seen getting out of the silver car and walking around to the driver’s side. The camera audio reportedly catches her yelling at Nantz, “David! Put it back! I said, put it back! You’re not taking anything!”

The video reportedly shows Nantz putting something in the back seat of the vehicle, and the woman takes it out; Nantz puts it back in the car, and the woman takes it out again, and then Nantz reverses the car out of the driveway.

Three minutes after that, Nantz can be seen walking back toward the house, carrying an empty five-gallon bucket. A minute later, Nantz is seen walking to the silver car, with multiple items in the bucket. A minute later, he returns to the house, carrying a black duffle bag, and two minutes after that, he comes back without the bag, while the woman tells him to hurry up and says, “We have to go!”

Detectives found that the car is registered to Nantz’s wife, and her driver’s license photo reportedly matches the woman in the surveillance videos. Nantz’s driver’s license photo was used to identify him as the man in the videos.

Nantz has been charged with burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, grand theft, and misdemeanor property damage. He has 10 local misdemeanor convictions, mostly traffic offenses, and he was found mentally incompetent to proceed with two cases in 2022 but did not meet the criteria for commitment to a treatment facility. He was issued four Notices to Appear in 2025 for driving without a license, but all of the cases were dropped. He is facing a sworn complaint for stealing items from Home Depot in May 2025. In a March 11 warrant, Judge James Colaw ordered that Nantz be held without bail until trial, but Judge Susan Miller-Jones noted that no notice was filed of intent to seek pre-trial detention, so she set bail at $165,000.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.