Former Plantation Councilman Ralph Merritt and wife Gloria die in possible homicide-suicide

Former Plantation Councilman Ralph Merritt and his wife Gloria died Thursday in what police said preliminarily appears to be a homicide-suicide.

The Merritts “were suffering from health problems,” said Det. Robert Rettig, a Plantation Police spokesperson. The couple was found dead at a home in the city Thursday morning, he said. Rettig said detectives are actively investigating.

The city’s post on Facebook, shared about 7:30 p.m., did not provide additional details about their deaths.

“The family asks for privacy at this time,” the city’s post said. “Please keep them in your prayers.”

Merritt was elected to the council in 1975 and served for over two decades. At the time he retired, his career was the longest of any council member in the city’s history.

He left the council in 1997 to retire but returned in 1999. He then decided to retire a second time, announcing he would not seek re-election at a public meeting in late 2002.

Gloria Merritt was a longtime member of the Plantation Woman’s Club and the Plantation Historical Society.

The Merritt family owned and ran the landmark Rena’s Flowers of Merritt, named after matriarch Rena Merritt who died in 2006. Rena’s husband and Ralph Merritt’s father, Ralph D. Merritt, opened the nursery in Plantation in 1955 that ultimately became the business. Ralph Merritt took the family business over in 1978 from his mother before passing it along to his son. Gloria Merritt was a co-owner.

A woman who answered the phone at the Merritts’ son’s home said it was too soon to comment and declined to speak.

Former Plantation Councilman Bob Levy didn’t serve with Merritt but knew him well.

“He advised me during my tenure and they were very close friends of mine,” he said. “They were staunch supporters of Plantation and what it meant to be in Plantation.”

He described them as down to earth, great people who summered in North Carolina. He said their son Steve Merritt is a Plantation firefighter. Levy called the couple “inseparable.”

Former Plantation Councilman Rico Petrocelli didn’t serve with Merritt, but they were friends. Petrocelli called them “the staple of the community. I have such great memories. They loved to travel, I used to talk to him for hours about politics. He was a kingmaker in Plantation.”

Information from the South Florida Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.

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