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Dig Uncovers Buried Animal Remains

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By CHRISTIAN M. WADE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 22, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - For months before investigators descended on Leisure Drive on Saturday, neighbors had talked about the body buried behind a mobile home there.

The rumors started about the same time Kenny Dexter and his girlfriend, Cathy Greisman, moved into the ramshackle, white singlewide mobile home at 5601 Leisure Drive, about halfway down this dead-end road.

Folks talked about a girl who disappeared in the area, known as a hot spot for drugs, about a year ago. They said she was a friend of the couple who used to live there. They said she was buried out back.

'I figured they were pulling my leg,' Dexter said. 'I never thought much about it.'

Then he noticed the maggots and flies - hundreds of them - congregating on hot summer days around a patch of disturbed earth, next to a tin-roofed shed behind the house.
Dexter said he tried to contact the authorities, but no one returned the call.

Saturday afternoon, his friend, David 'Turbo' Brown, who lives down the street, decided to find out for himself. He borrowed a shovel and started digging up the earth behind the shed.

The spot was too muddy, though. So, after a few shovels, he gave up.

'There was some boards under the dirt,' Brown said. 'But I didn't find no body.'
Dexter called the Pasco County Sheriff's Office and, a few hours later, detectives showed up at the house and started looking around, questioning Dexter and Greisman and other residents.

Early Sunday morning, a forensics team from the sheriff's office arrived at the house, cordoned off the road and property with yellow police tape and started digging.

Detectives and the forensics team spent of the day gathering evidence from behind the shed, as reporters and neighbors watched from behind the police barricade.

People stood on nearby rooftops, trying to catch of glimpse of the crime scene. TV news trucks and police cruisers lined the narrow road. Helicopters hovered above.

Everyone seemed to have a different theory on what authorities would find.

Al Stafford, chugging a beer and dragging on a cigarette, was sure it was a body.

But they were digging in the wrong place, he said.

'I told them, she ain't behind the house. She's buried over there,' he said, gesturing to a patch of woods on the other side of the road. 'But they didn't want to listen to me.'

Some even speculated that deputies might find the body of Tammie Walker, a missing 37-year-old Holiday woman who was last seen in the mobile home in October 2006.

About 4 p.m. Sunday, the forensics team finally uncovered the body.

It was the decomposing remains of a domesticated animal.

'It was a small pet,' sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll said. 'At this point, we're not completely sure if it was a dog or a cat, but it's definitely not human.'

Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (727) 815-1082 or cwade@tampatrib.com.

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