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Body Found Day After Home Burns

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By DAVID SOMMER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 18, 2008

HOLIDAY - A home that was declared empty when it was damaged by fire early Tuesday yielded up a body Wednesday afternoon.

Detectives are now looking for the woman who rented the home at 4635 Darlington Road, identified as Theresa Jones, 46, said Doug Tobin, spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

Tobin would not release the gender or exact location where the body was found, except to say it was "on the premises." Tobin said firefighters and deputies searched the badly damaged home following the approximately 2:30 a.m. blaze on Tuesday and found no one, concluding that Jones and her son were not home at the time of the fire.

He said deputies returned to the home Wednesday afternoon after an anonymous caller tipped them off to a "suspicious incident" there.

However, neighbor Mark Tringone said he knew where the body was found and who made the call because he found it and told his dad.

Tringone, 13, said he is best friends with Jones' 14-year-old son and that he went to the home Wednesday afternoon to retrieve a mini-motorcycle that he and his friend had been working on.

He said a swarm of flies and a new pile of dirt led him to a woman's body wrapped in a blanket partially buried in the back yard. Some of Jones' friends, whom Tringone said where known as Chuck and Buddy, were at the house around noon Tuesday, he and his mother, Maureen Tringone, said.

Maureen Tringone said she called Pasco Fire Rescue on Tuesday to ask if anyone knew where Jones was taken, thinking her neighbor had been hospitalized following the fire.

She said she was told no one had been transported from the home. She said she then told the operator that Jones lived at the home but was nowhere to be found after the blaze.

Mark Tringone said his friend was sleeping at another friend's house the night of the blaze. He said the boy's extended family had arranged for him to fly back to their home in Chicago earlier Wednesday.

"This is so sad, I've been friends with her for a long time and now it looks like she wound up in a hole, in the dirt, in the back yard," Maureen Tringone said.

Jones had lived at the dilapidated rental home for about 14 years, and recently broke up with a boyfriend who she had been going out with for at least 10 years, Maureen Tringone said.

Her son said Chuck and Buddy recently had been doing work around the house for his friend's mother.

Tobin said the detectives had not moved or uncovered the body Wednesday night and that they were scouring the area around it for evidence while waiting for the Pasco-Pinellas Medical Examiner to arrive and retrieve the body.

The Pasco fire marshal has not yet determined the cause of Tuesday morning's fire, which gutted the home's gables but left the roof relatively intact, Tobin said.

Reporter David Sommer can be reached at (727) 815-1087 or dsommer@tampatrib.com.

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