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Polygraph Tests Suggest Onstott, Lunde 'Deceptive'

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By THOMAS W. KRAUSE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 29, 2008

TAMPA - Hours after Sarah Michelle Lunde was reported missing, investigators zeroed in on David Lee Onstott as the chief suspect - partially because Sarah's brother fingered Onstott as having been to their house in Ruskin and partially because Onstott failed a lie-detector test.

Investigative documents unsealed after last week's trial show that Onstott was deceptive when a detective asked questions about Sarah's disappearance.

Other records recently released, however, show that Andrew Lunde failed a polygraph exam the same day Onstott did.

After Onstott failed the test, he began to talk about crimes he committed and the time he served in prison.

After Andrew Lunde failed the test, he said he felt guilty for leaving his sister alone, then broke down and cried.

At trial, Onstott's defense attorneys tried to convince the jury that sheriff's investigators ignored lies told by Andrew Lunde and neglected to consider him a suspect. Polygraph results generally are not allowed into evidence. The jury did not know about the two lie-detector tests.

Despite an absence of physical evidence linking Onstott to Sarah's death, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Jurors said they relied on incriminating statements Onstott made to his mother and to a jail deputy.

According to the documents released this week, Andrew Lunde spoke to Hillsborough County sheriff's detectives on April 11, 2005, a Monday.

Sarah had returned home from a church trip on Saturday night, Andrew Lunde said. He and a friend went to Taco Bell to get her some dinner, but they met some girls and returned home after 3:30 a.m. Sarah was gone.

The next day, their mother, Kelly May, returned from an out-of-town trip. She and Andrew Lunde thought Sarah went to a friend's house. When Sarah did not show up for school Monday, she was reported missing.

Andrew Lunde told detectives that Onstott, who once had a sexual relationship with May, came to the door about 5 a.m. He asked about May, grabbed a beer bottle that was on a table and left. The beer bottle was not there when Andrew Lunde and his friend left for Taco Bell, Lunde told detectives. This led him to think that Onstott had been to the house while he was out.

A Deceptive Nature

Andrew Lunde agreed to take a polygraph exam.

"Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of your sister Sarah?" a detective asked.

"No," he responded.

"Have you withheld any information regarding the disappearance of your sister Sarah?"

Again, he answered no.

"In the opinion of the examiner of the polygraph test conducted, Lunde displayed reactions of a deceptive nature to the main issue questions," sheriff's Detective Sandra Streator wrote in her report.

In a post-test interview, Andrew Lunde maintained that he had nothing to do with his sister's disappearance. He said he felt responsible because he did not return from Taco Bell as he said he would.

The detective asked Andrew Lunde to write a statement about the night Sarah disappeared. Lunde was hooked up to the polygraph machine and asked whether he lied in the written statement. He said no.

"Lunde again displayed reactions of a deceptive nature," Streator wrote.

He could not explain why the machine said he was lying, Streator wrote.

At trial, Streator could not mention the polygraph but testified that Andrew Lunde was extremely emotional about his sister's disappearance and felt guilty that he left her. He broke down and cried, Streator testified.

Lunde could not be reached for comment.

An official with the Florida Polygraph Association said the test detectives gave Andrew Lunde is one of the most accurate available. Nonetheless, the results might have been skewed because Streator asked Andrew Lunde the second round of questions on the same day he failed the first round, said Wade Moss, the vice president of the association.

Moss said he likes to wait a week or even a month before retesting someone who fails the test. The subject could be extremely agitated, he said.

Moss did say it was good that Streator did not ask the same questions in the second round, instead focusing on the written statement. That helped create some distance between the original questions and the new ones.

Questions For Onstott

Based on Andrew Lunde's information, homicide detectives tracked down and interviewed Onstott.

About 6 p.m. April, 11, 2005, Onstott acknowledged having been to Sarah's house and speaking to Andrew Lunde. He told detectives he did not see Sarah. He agreed to take a polygraph exam.

"Did you have anything to do with Sarah's disappearance?" a detective asked.

Onstott said no.

"Do you know for sure where Sarah is now?"

Again, Onstott answered no.

"David displayed reactions of a deceptive nature to the above listed questions on the polygraph test," Detective Jorge Fernandez wrote in his report.

Interviewed after the test, Onstott said he had been abused physically as a child and suggested he was abused sexually, according to the report. He talked about the time he served in prison for a rape conviction.

The report states that Onstott talked about a time he faced a charge of attempted murder. He said he was acquitted of that charge because of two private attorneys. Had he relied on a public defender, he told the detectives, he would have been convicted.

Seven days after Sarah's disappearance, her body was found and Onstott acknowledged to detectives that he choked her. He said he was drunk, blacked out afterward and did not remember what happened next.

A judge determined that the jury could not hear Onstott's statements. He had asked to speak to his attorney but was not allowed.

With no physical evidence, jurors relied on a conversation Onstott had with his mother in which he told her he gets "freak show" violent when he drinks and wonders why he can be so "vicious." They also heard the testimony of a jail deputy who said Onstott told him that he had argued with Sarah and held her in a choke hold.

On Wednesday, after 1,233 days at the Orient Road Jail, Onstott left the county.

He was transported to state prison shortly after 2 a.m., according to the Web site for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

In Florida, there is no early release for life sentences.

Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tkrause@tampatrib.com.

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