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Sheriff Calls Lutz Case 'Most Horrific Crime Scene I've Ever Seen'

Tribune photo by JAY CONNER

Hillsborough County authorities face a grim task at the mobile home in Lutz where two children and their mother were found dead Monday.

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By KEITH MORELLI, VALERIE KALFRIN and NICOLA M. WHITE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 12, 2008

Updated: 05/12/2008 08:38 pm

TAMPA - Two young children and their 26-year-old mother were brutally slain in their Lutz home and Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies were mum about specifics, saying only that the scene was grisly and wrenching and that no arrests had been made.

"This is the most horrific crime scene I've ever seen," said Sheriff David Gee. "It's an extremely difficult crime scene to work."

Deputies were expected to work throughout the night collecting evidence. No one had been arrested by Monday night. One man was transported in handcuffs to a nearby hospital. He was taken from inside the house. His name was not released and he had not been charged.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter on Monday night would not reveal the conditions of the bodies, but did say family members could not make positive identifications by looking at them. She would not elaborate.

At 7 p.m., nine hours after deputies were first called to the scene, Carter said investigators knew who was supposed to be living in the home, but, "due to the condition of the scene, we have not been able to determine if, in fact, (the bodies) are those individuals."

She would not answer questions about whether the bodies had been mutilated. She just said that they could not be identified by people who knew them.

She said the scene was wrenching, evening for one crime scene technician, a 30-year veteran, who said, "He has never seen anything like this."

She was vague, not releasing the names of victims of if any suspects were being questioned.
"It will become clearer once they get everything together," she said.

Sheriff David Gee said the inside of the mobile home was, "an extremely gruesome scene, more so than we would normally see in a crime scene."

Besides the children, a 7-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl, the family's dog also was slain.
The usually quiet rural neighborhood was rocked Monday morning by the screams of a woman.
Tim Kelly was home when a woman, whom he identified as the children's grandmother, ran out of the house screaming, "He's dead. He's dead. He's dead."

Kelly, 50, said he rushed over to find out what was going on.

"The woman was hysterical," Kelly said. "I held her hand and tried to comfort her the best I could."
Then the children's grandfather went inside the home and came out, Kelly said.

"He came at me and said, 'Don't go in there,'" Kelly said.

Kelly looked in from the door and saw the boy on the floor, he said.

"It was pretty scary," he said. "I wouldn't want to have to experience that again."

He said he didn't know the mother well, just in passing. He thought she worked at a nearby department store. He had seen the children outside from time to time.

"You don't think something like this could happen in your neighborhood," said Kelly, who has lived in the area since 1987. "It's just a sad thing when kids are involved."

Neighbors were stunned.

Pamela Collard was in tears this evening while talking about what had happened in her neighbor's home.

"She was my friend," Collard said of the victim. "She was really nice. I just don't believe this ever happened."

Collard said her daughters often played with the 2-year-old victim in the pool and her 14-year-old son mowed the victim's yard.

"I just don't understand why someone would do something like that," Collard said.

"Those kids didn't deserve that. They were only babies. They didn't have a chance to live."

Her 14-year-old son, Thomas, said the 7-year-old victim was, "like a brother to me. I loved them all."

He said the boy's mother would take him horseback riding. She loaned his family money when they needed it and would watch him and his sisters if his parents asked.

He said she had recently got a promotion at work, and, "She thought life was going well."

"I knew once we came home it wasn't going to be the same," around the neighborhood, he said.

His father, Thomas Collard said his neighbor, "wouldn't hurt nobody. It's too close to home. I got four kids of my own. This happens not four houses from my house."

According to county tax records, the property at 1918 S. Mobile Villa Drive is owned by Keith and Barbara Freiberg who live in a house less than a mile away. Their 26-year-old daughter, Lisa, was living in the mobile home, according to other court records.

This afternoon, detectives were seen entering the Freibergs' home on East Lake Burrell Drive, which is where Lisa Freiberg grew up. Detectives spent about three hours inside. Neither the detectives nor the Freibergs would comment.

By 5 p.m., deputies had not confirmed the names of the victims or whether anyone was in custody.

A man was found hiding in one of the bedrooms of the victims' small home, and deputies were interviewing him, Gee said. It was unclear whether the unidentified man was the same person escorted into the hospital. Gee said the man is someone who might be known to the family.

"I can say that Hillsborough sheriff's deputies did transport a white male from the scene to the UCH emergency room," said hospital spokesman Will Darnall late this afternoon.

By 6 p.m., the man was still being evaluated, Darnall said. He was under guard.

When asked whether the man was a suspect or survivor, Gee said, "We're looking at everything right now."

A deputy initially went inside the home and saw the man and the bodies, Carter said.

The bodies remain inside the home. By 2 p.m., deputies had obtained a search warrant and had entered the house to collect evidence. Deputies denied a request for the 911 tape, saying it was part of the active investigation.

The 911 call was made at 10:37 a.m. Deputies said they had not responded to any other calls for service at the South Mobile Villa Drive address during the past two years.

Kimberly Post and her 23-year-old son Timothy didn't know her slain neighbors, having moved to the community just recently. But on Monday night, she and her son placed a stuffed rabbit and a bouquet of flowers she got for Mother's Day on the corner.

She said she enjoyed the flower for the day and wanted to do something to memorialize the slain family.

"From one mother to another, I can't imagine anything worse than losing your child," she said. "Regardless of what happened, the kids didn't deserve it."

Reporters Thomas W. Krause, Josh Poltilove and Harold Valentine, and editor Howard Altman, contributed to this report. Report Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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