A Florida man worried when his wife failed to respond to his texts went looking for her and made a horrible discovery.
Gerald Strader's wife, Tina, worked as the housekeeping manager at the motel where the couple lived. He and his wife always stayed in touch while she was working cleaning rooms, according to News Channel 8.
"She texts me when she starts the room so I will know. Normally, if it is a really bad room, she would say, 'It'll just take me longer, or can you get this for me'," Strader told the station.
After not hearing from Tina, Strader went looking to see if she was OK. When he came to the door of the room she was cleaning, it was closed.
"Protocol would be for her to have the door open while she is cleaning the room. They were so shorthanded yesterday that I just assumed with the door closed that they had moved her to one of the other floors or something like that," Strader told the station. "Nobody had seen her and then when I went and finally opened the door, I found her."
Strader found his severely battered wife in the room's closet, with a towel stuck in her mouth, the Miami Herald reported. Strader, with the help of another motel worker, pulled her out of the closet and they began CPR. The mother of four eventually died from her injuries.
"What I'm about to share with you, as a sheriff, is difficult," Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman said at a news conference Wednesday. "This is one of the most egregious crimes we've seen recently."
Hoffman said that Stephen Matthew Havrilka, 30, was staying in room 209, just a couple of doors down from 205 where Strader was cleaning.
Police said that Havrilka was seen on surveillance video entering room 205 about one minute after Strader last texted her husband at 8:49 a.m. The video shows that Havrilka left the room at 9:04 a.m. carrying a white towel and his shoes. He leaves the hotel at 9:12 a.m., the Miami Herald reported.
A little more than an hour later, police picked up Havrilka after a report of a "suspicious" person, News Channel 8 reported. "He was literally speaking in tongues, acting very erratic, combative, and was clearly under the influence of narcotics or some type of stimulant," the station quoted Hoffman.
According to News Channel 8, Havrilka has 19 felony convictions and numerous misdemeanors. His previous crimes include vehicle burglary, criminal mischief, motor vehicle theft, battery, strangulation, and battery of a person 65 years or older.
"There is no other way to describe Mr. Havrilka – he is an animal," Hoffman told the station. "He also has tattoos that depict his certain symbols of white supremacy...and his neo-Nazi alliances."
Strader has setup a GoFundMe page to help pay for his wife's funeral.
"My beautiful wife was murdered by an unstable person while she was at work. I am disabled, in a wheelchair, with limited use of either hand. We have no money to cover the funeral expenses or my living expenses," the page states.
