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Remains identified as woman, 18

Originally published August 10, 1996

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 22, 2009

ST. PETERSBURG - The skeletal remains found along Interstate 275 last year are those of an 18-year-old exotic dancer who might have been lying there for six years.

Authorities on Friday said the woman they've referred to as Jane Doe was Cheryl Ann Commesso, a Brandon teenager who had performed at Mons Venus in Tampa under the stage name Stevie.

Her remains were discovered on March 26, 1995, as a work crew was clearing brush on a stretch of the interstate just north of Gandy Boulevard. One worker accidentally kicked a skull.

Commesso was slain, possibly with a gun, said St. Petersburg Detective Bob Schock. No other details on the cause of death were released.

Commesso was last seen the first week of April 1989 while she was on her way to visit friends in Tampa. She was not reported missing, however, for two months. Investigators said her family told them it was common for her to disappear for weeks at a time.

A relative at the Commesso household in Brandon declined to comment on Friday, except to say Cheryl Ann was a "happy go lucky girl."

Authorities said she was living on her own at the time of her death and recently had moved back into the Tampa area from Orlando, where she had danced at a club called Thee Doll House. They say they don't know where she was working before she was killed.

Detectives identified her after receiving information suggesting they check out missing person reports filed more than five years before the bones were found, with the critical years being 1988 and 1989, Schock said.

Until then, they were concentrating on reports filed one to five years before, based on a rough estimate of how long the remains had been there.

Schock would not disclose what the new information was, nor would he say what, if anything, authorities had done with the car Commesso was last seen driving.

Commesso was identified through dental records; the teeth found along the interstate were in good condition, with no fillings or cavities. Commesso also was known to have had breast implants similar to the one found along the highway. And her height was the same as Jane Doe.

Investigators had used other techniques to identify the woman, but to no avail. They included putting a reconstruction of her face, based on the skull, on the Internet, and releasing photographs of the jewelry, clothing and sculptured fingernails found on or near the body.

More than 100 tips were checked out, from as far away as Michigan, Indiana and Oklahoma City. Twenty-eight missing person cases from St. Petersburg alone were eliminated. And Schock checked out a similar case in Okaloosa County in which a confessed serial killer imprisoned in Oregon was a suspect. But there doesn't appear any link, authorities said Friday.

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