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Murder at the Motel Season 2 Episode 6
Murder at the Motel
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Murder at the Motel
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00:00A woman was found in room 205.
00:11She's got blood all around her.
00:14There's blood coming out of her nose and mouth.
00:16I went back up and went 205 and opened the door and I could see her foot.
00:24She had a washcloth that was stuffed in her mouth and a shoe print on the side of her face.
00:30From prior incidents at the hotel, we knew there was pretty good surveillance there, a lot of cameras.
00:37We see someone walk into the room and he's in there for 14 minutes.
00:43He leaves the room and leaves the hotel.
00:46You see just this sinister look on his face.
00:50You really didn't know what was behind the eyes.
00:55He's just pure evil in my opinion. He always has been.
00:58He knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences for that.
01:02Who are you?
01:13I'll see you next time.
01:43From the hotel, Ryan, reported that a woman was found in room 205.
01:49When he was talking to the dispatch, he said that it looks like she fell.
01:57She's got blood all around her.
01:59There's blood coming out of her nose and mouth.
02:02She's got very shallow breathing.
02:04He put his hand on her chest and could feel a heartbeat.
02:07When he found her, he also noticed that there was a towel on her mouth.
02:13He pulled the towel out, just tried to resuscitate her at that point.
02:22We actually had one of our guys parked in the parking lot of the roadway when the call came out.
02:28My initial thought was likely a drug overdose.
02:34At this period of time, we're having a real problem with fentanyl overdoses, even to the point where we're carrying Narcan in our vest.
02:42When I first got there, the paramedics and firefighters, they were arriving on scene.
02:50I went up the stairway with them, and one of our deputies was already there providing first aid.
02:57And, you know, as soon as the paramedics got there, they took over first aid.
03:01And I kind of just stood outside the room in the doorway just to maintain the scene.
03:09The victim's husband, Gerald Strader, identifies her to the police as Tina Strader and informs them that she works as a cleaner in the roadway in.
03:19When they found her, she was half in the closet with her feet sticking out, so they could see her feet from the doorway.
03:27So when they pulled her, there was a trail of blood from the closet to where she was ultimately bound by first responders.
03:36She had some trauma to her face and to her neck.
03:40What stood out the most is that she had a shoe print on the side of her face.
03:44As far as we knew, she hadn't been down too long because Ryan didn't see her chest rise.
03:50He had been performing CPR.
03:52So any signs of life, our first priority is preservation of life.
03:56So they're going to transport her to the hospital to see if they can save her.
04:01As Tina's rushed to the hospital, detectives pulled Gerald aside and asked him some questions.
04:08We needed to speak with him.
04:10We needed to get more information about some of the things that he saw because he was living there.
04:14He was on scene when this happened.
04:17He was one of our best witnesses to put a time frame together.
04:24It was 205 on her...
04:27Yeah, a vacant list.
04:28It was on her vacant list, so she told you she was there at 849?
04:32849, and I texted her right back.
04:35She texted both those messages at 849 and texted her back at 851, and she didn't text me back.
04:41So what time did you end up going and looking?
04:43Honestly, it must have been right after 952.
04:47I went to the third floor, and I saw Liz with the third floor girl.
04:52I said, have you seen Tina at all?
04:53She said, she's on the second floor.
04:55I said, well, she's supposed to be down there, but I don't see her anywhere.
04:58I went back up and went 205, and I opened the door, and I could see her foot.
05:07He's got some physical disabilities, so he wasn't able to actually go into the room due to his wheelchair,
05:13but he called for Ryan.
05:16Her head was right by the water heater, and she was kind of laying half in that room and half right there in front of the sink,
05:26and she was in a pool of blood under her head, and it was smeared over here on the floor, too.
05:33And she had a rag in her mouth, like, stuffed way down in her mouth.
05:39That was wadded like this and stuck down in her throat.
05:43Something just didn't seem right with the whole circumstance.
05:50She was there alone.
05:51She was an employee.
05:53We knew she was in there cleaning the room.
05:55There was some blood on the floor.
05:57One of our guys on our unit immediately went down to the front office to start checking video
06:04to see if there's anything unusual.
06:07From prior incidents at the hotel, we knew there was pretty good surveillance there, a lot of cameras.
06:13He calls me up shortly after, like, within minutes.
06:18He told me something's not right here.
06:26What you see in the video is Tina approaches room 205 with her cart.
06:34You see her husband kind of in the background, and they look like they're having some type of an exchange,
06:39just a verbal exchange.
06:40And she goes into the room, and her husband leaves the opposite direction.
06:48Only a minute later, we see someone.
06:51He walks towards the room.
06:53You can see him look inside.
06:55He then walks back towards his room, which was 209, just around the corner.
06:59And then he comes back, and you see him walk into the room.
07:13He's in there for 14 minutes.
07:17He leaves the room and leaves the hotel.
07:19What was really scary with that tape is you see just this sinister look on his face.
07:43Both before and after he enters the room, he's smiling, and he looks like he's proud of himself.
07:52It was gut-wrenching to watch that.
08:05Investigators speak to the staff at the roadway in to learn more about the man staying in room 209.
08:10I interviewed the motel staff.
08:12I was tasked with speaking to them about any interactions they had had with him during that time.
08:18He was not favorably looked upon as a guest, created a lot of issues with some of the other tenants.
08:24Some of the other tenants, the staff themselves, were not comfortable being around him.
08:30My wife cleaned, I think it was 209 yesterday, and said something to the management that something wasn't right about that guy.
08:42She's like, keep an eye on this guy, because there's just something not right about him.
08:46I don't know what it is.
08:49He had a lot of tattoos, which has nothing to do with it.
08:52Tattoos aren't the point, that doesn't really matter.
08:54It was more his eyes.
08:56He gave me a look.
08:57I don't know, it was weird.
08:59He had dark eyes.
09:00His eyes were black.
09:02So I called my husband before I went back to the room to give him his towels, and I had my husband come up.
09:09And then I handed the guy the towels.
09:10He said, thank you, and he went on about his business.
09:12And he just sat there with the door open, smoking, listening to a lot of music, loud music.
09:18And everybody that came in contact with him, he would not let them in the room.
09:24He was not a nice guy.
09:26He would snap at these people, and he would be that person where you look at him, and he would just start saying things to you in a demeaning manner.
09:33And you weren't sure what was going to happen.
09:37You really didn't know what was behind the eyes.
09:46Investigators conduct a search of both rooms for evidence to see if they can establish a link between Tina Strader and the man staying in room 209.
09:54Room 205 was where Tina was located.
10:00So in there, we had, again, her clothing.
10:03We had the towel that was stuffed in her mouth, a lanyard that she had been wearing, her hearing aid, some blood swabs.
10:11At that point, we kind of focused our attention to his room, being that, you know, he's likely a suspect in whatever happened to Tina in room 205.
10:21So we were outside the room.
10:23We started making announcements for him to come out, and there was no response.
10:27So we thought we were probably going to have to make entry.
10:32Within 209, we located some more narcotics, another towel that was bloodied, and we also took the pee trap in his sink because we were hoping to find some more evidence that maybe he had tried to wash himself prior to leaving the hotel.
10:46Police fanned across the hotel property in a desperate search for the suspect from room 209, but he was nowhere to be found.
10:57They knew it was a race against time to apprehend a violent killer who might strike again.
11:03April 20th, 2021.
11:13Police are searching for their prime suspect in the attack on Tina Strader when they catch a break.
11:19Through interviewing the motel staff, they learn the name of their suspect, Stephen Havrilka.
11:26Stephen Havrilka has an extensive criminal history.
11:35I worked that area he grew up in.
11:37I started my career down there.
11:39He was one of those kids that started with the vehicle burglaries, and we kind of just dealt with him on that aspect.
11:45And then it became every briefing, he would do something or he'd be a person of interest in doing something.
11:50He did go to jail for a little bit of time to take us away from there.
11:57If you had a crime committed in that area, he was always a person of interest at the time if he was out of jail.
12:04As the crime scene is being processed, detectives receive a surprising call about a potential sighting of their suspect.
12:11There is a gentleman who was acting very erratic down by the regent's bank.
12:18He has his arms outstretched.
12:20He's proclaiming that he's Jesus.
12:22And this is when the 911 calls start coming in.
12:27We start hearing calls for backup from the deputy that responded to the bank down the road for the suspicious person.
12:35To be honest, I didn't really pay any attention when the initial call came out because our circumstance at the hotel.
12:44But then when we start hearing our deputy down the road calling for backup, another deputy at the hotel told me,
12:52hey, I think he's out with, you know, Stephen Havrilka, who's our suspect here.
12:57At that point, I ran down to my car and I got to him as fast as I could.
13:01We were really fortunate with this case and that we did have all of the community support that we did
13:08because they saw this guy and they said, you know what, he doesn't look right.
13:12There's something off about him.
13:15People thought he was crazy.
13:17They didn't know if he was on something.
13:19But he was getting down on his knees, acting like he was on a cross.
13:23Not normal behavior for somebody at roughly 11 o'clock in the morning in front of a bank.
13:28When the callers called, there was one female that said that he was stripping down and maybe possibly fondling himself.
13:37There was another caller that stated that he was on his hands and knees praying.
13:42When I got there, there was two deputies.
13:49They were just placing handcuffs on Havrilka.
13:52He was on his belly, face down.
13:55He was, like, trying to buck them off.
13:57At that point, I came up and I helped him out.
14:00I tried to hold him down.
14:01And he just, it felt like superhuman strength.
14:04I remember I was trying to hold his legs and hamstrings down and he was, like, bucking me up.
14:12I heard he was saying things like she and her.
14:15And knowing that he had some involvement, likely what happened to Tina, I took out my cell phone.
14:21I started recording just in case he made any, like, spontaneous statements about what he did there.
14:26I need to stop, stop, stop, relax, relax, relax.
14:31Okay, take it.
14:32It's okay.
14:33I can't do that to me.
14:34No, no, no, no, no, no.
14:35I can't do that to me.
14:35Sorry.
14:36I can't do it.
14:37She told me.
14:38I don't care.
14:39Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
14:42Stop.
14:44Steven, man, I need you to come down for me.
14:46Calm down for me.
14:47Calm down.
14:49Calm down.
14:49Calm down.
14:49Calm down.
14:51Calm down.
14:52Relax.
14:53Calm down.
14:54We're going to get an ambulance.
14:56Check you out, okay, man?
14:59He was trying to eat grass.
15:02He was just delusional.
15:04He looked like he was definitely under the influence of drugs.
15:08Stop eating grass, man.
15:11Stop eating the grass.
15:13Mommy, I wasn't really you.
15:15I was done with you.
15:17Mommy, I don't want to play.
15:21Stop.
15:21Stop.
15:21She told me.
15:24She told me I had to come down.
15:26I have to come down.
15:27I have to come down.
15:41Some of the deputies that were there knew him from past encounters.
15:43so luckily they were able to kind of talk him down a little bit so he didn't
15:47end up fighting them and they were able to take him into custody and ultimately
15:52he was transported to the hospital because he was so influenced by
15:55narcotics he was soaking wet he had no shirt on he had jeans that were they
16:03felt like he just got out of a swimming pool he obviously had something going on
16:07a mental situation or drug situation in the hospital they're checking his
16:13blood toxicity making sure that he doesn't have any kind of injuries so he's
16:18just there basically for medical clearance at this point at that point he
16:24was pretty sedated we collected his jeans and you know put them in a paper bag for
16:31evidence purposes which it was later handed off to our crime scene people
16:37Tina she was there at the same hospital as a few rooms down actually
16:44Steven Havrilka is too under the influence of drugs for police to question him
16:49about the attack on Tina Strader who remains in critical condition
16:54investigators can only wait and hope that she will wake up and give a
16:58statement about what happened in room 205
17:08Venice Florida April 2021 Tina Strader is in critical condition after a brutal attack in
17:16the roadway in a few hours after being rushed to the hospital Tina passes away from her injuries
17:24there's no easy way for us to tell someone that their loved one has died and especially in a manner such
17:31as this we all dreaded it's the worst part of the job I feel so awful for her and her family and what
17:43they've gone through I can't even imagine the the depth of paint that it must be for them
17:52Gerald was what you would expect of a very grieving husband he was very emotional he really described
17:58Tina as everything to him with the reason for him to continue living the reason for waking up every
18:05single day and when we were speaking with him you could just see the pain and the hurt that he was
18:11carrying both on the outside and the inside I think about her every day of what she deserves he was
18:21the biggest giver the biggest biggest heart the biggest genuine soul of anybody I've ever known in my
18:28entire life from what I learned from Gerald Tina just appeared to be a very infectious person somebody
18:40that was willing to help others somebody that was willing to talk to anybody that may be down on
18:45their luck and somebody that was always willing to lend a helping hand
18:49we learned that Gerald had met Tina at a poultry plant when they were both living in Texas and Tina had
18:58this bubbly personality and something just really stuck out and caught Gerald's attention
19:02Gerald and Tina were really living out their honeymoon phase here in Florida they were making
19:10friends they loved going to the beach Gerald did have some health problems but Tina was working to
19:15take care of him he used a wheelchair to get around and he was also employed at the motel as well sort of
19:21the maintenance man so the two of them were really trying to build a life together here in Florida
19:26initially at the hospital some things were not observed that were observed in the autopsy for
19:46instance the severe amount of bruising to her head and a shoe imprint that we found on her face with
19:54everything that's going on in the hospital with all the tubes and everything that was not necessarily visible at
19:59that time we want to know exactly how she died even though we have a lot of evidence pointing us to a certain cause of
20:10death we need a definitive answer we need somebody in a medical background telling us this is what she
20:16actually died of
20:22on the 21st of April 2021 Sarasota Sheriff's Department hold a press conference to inform the community of
20:30the heinous crime that has taken place
20:34we knew that this was a big deal because the sheriff himself Sheriff Kurt Hoffman had called a press
20:39conference
20:43you could tell the sense of urgency when we were out there we knew that something very bad had happened
20:49inside that room
20:52by all accounts what I'm about to share with you is one of the most egregious crimes we've seen recently
20:58here in Sarasota County so we are following up leads today interviewing people looking at video
21:04things of that nature so it is still a very active investigation
21:09we found out it was strangulation not by a cord or a rope but by by crushing force which could only be done by by somebody's hands
21:23not to our surprise have Ruka was uncooperative when interviewed however through the investigation
21:32detectives have learned that have Ruka did not know the victim I can only imagine that he may have spent his
21:38days perhaps observing her at the roadway in where she was employed and he was staying as you can see have Ruka is extremely familiar with law enforcement he is a convicted felon
21:51with 34 prior felony charges and 19 felony convictions have Ruka's prior crimes range from battery domestic battery by strangulation burglary with a battery battery of a detained person battery of a person 65 years or older and tampering with a witness to name a few there's no other way to describe Mr. Havruka he is an animal he also has tattoos that depict his
22:21certain symbols of white supremacy
22:28the victim in this case was doing her job was certainly terrorized battered and now is deceased as this investigation continues we are committed to working with the state attorney's office to see that this man is put away for the rest of his life
22:43while Stephen Havruka is in the hospital he talks to the police about what happened that morning and admits to some harrowing details of the crime
22:55I did initially attempt to talk to him at the hospital and he would not talk with me
23:09however what was interesting is that we had deputies that had to go with him everywhere that he went as an inmate and at the hospital we admitted to the offense on several occasions to several of the corrections deputies
23:24I went ahead and uh I got high and I was up for about a week and when I was up for about a week I was going through a hairbrush and then I just walked out the door and then I took a left and when I took a left and when I took to the left I sensed that there was a woman right there in that room because there was cleaning ways there but there could have been a guy
23:43when I went there I took a left and then when I took a left I went there she was in the room and I said hey and when she came in the room I hit her and when I hit her she fell on the floor and she fell on the floor I started choking her and I stomped on her
24:01Stephen Havroka is released from the hospital and taken straight into custody
24:14he refuses to tell investigators anything else about that morning or why he chose to attack Tina Strader so the investigators have to piece together the events themselves
24:25we knew that she had been kicked in the face because we could see the shoe print
24:30and we couldn't find his shoes and we wanted to know if he had done any additional evidence
24:36so we did a canine track we actually did several of them in order to try to recover any of this potential
24:42evidence and that canine track led us to the wooded area where we located some of his clothing
24:48and some narcotics by his own admission he said that he had ingested methamphetamine
24:54in those woods immediately after the murder
24:58once he's now high on meth he exits the wooded area and starts walking southbound on Tamiami Trail
25:05which is a very heavily traveled roadway
25:08it was either the day after or two days after we assisted in canvassing the neighborhood back behind
25:15where he walked down gentian trying to locate video surveillance
25:19at one home right behind where the roadway is located on gentian i found someone that did have video surveillance of him walking down the street
25:30investigators then catch a break when have broke his dna is discovered on tina's lanyard
25:37the only piece of evidence that we had both tina and how broke his dna on was her lanyard
25:45which was great for the case because she had obviously been wearing that at the time of the crime
25:49and then the rest of the items were all just her dna
25:56his room we didn't end up sending anything off for testing at that point we were very confident in the case that we had
26:04and were limited with the florida department of law enforcement on how many pieces of evidence we can send
26:08so we sent what we felt were the most important pieces for them to test
26:15detectives also interview have broke his family members to gain more insight into his character
26:21they stated he was a good kid when he's on drugs he's not the same person that he normally is
26:28they don't know what happened here but this is not normally who he is
26:33i know they're not a family of well means so i don't know how much they could actually help him out with
26:40him his mother his sister they tried getting him into several different you know out patient treatment programs
26:50none of them succeeded or he didn't qualify for
26:54his mom did tell us that around but she said between 9 and 9 30 the day of the murder that steven texted her
27:02and it was just a very bizarre text that he was moonwalking and talk of rainbows and she said it made
27:09absolutely no sense and we found out that that was almost immediately after the murder
27:18while the sarasota sheriff's office builds their case against havroka they continued to try to talk to him
27:24detectives have a confession from steven havroka but still do not know his motive
27:30he flat out refused to talk to us approximately two or three weeks later happened to check my email
27:37and i was told that he wanted to talk to the detectives about this case
27:43so around lunchtime myself and detective patella went to the jail we went to the proper room
27:49and at that time mr havroka was brought in by the deputies he was a very subdued state compared to
27:56what we had normally seen him in previously and then he decided he was going to tell us what happened
28:02april 2021 venice florida detectives are interviewing steven havroka for the murder of tina straighter
28:19at the roadway inn motel
28:21we were told that you wanted to speak with us i just want to tell you all what happened okay
28:30i remember i was working out that night and uh i went to go try and have a drink and clear my head
28:36a few uh places down at this wally's place but it was closed so i went back and said all right that's fine
28:43uh went went got like a four pack of beer or something and just sat in there and and and was just uh
28:50was kind of getting in my head which i had been doing for a long time and it's a dangerous place
28:57well i went across the street to checkers and when i went across the street to checkers i
29:04you know just uh just the way the world is these days man and there was somebody there who was talking
29:10about drugs and then i started using it and it's just i ended up staying in my hotel room for for a
29:18week i didn't really leave i'd come out i was paranoid and some of it had to do with some drug use but
29:25a lot of it was already there everything inside my head got more vivid and louder because i wasn't
29:31i was that's the only place i was at i had this this voice in my head this was telling me that i
29:38that i don't belong here that i belong i'm meant to go home and i'm from hell or something they just kept
29:45repeating over and over and over and over and over again to where i would actually believe them
29:50the last thing that i thought that i that this was heaven and that i was uh i was from hell and i
29:58don't belong here and i needed to go home to my family and the only way i could go home to my family is
30:03if i did what i did and i just went outside and and i just picked the first person that i seen
30:12i didn't i didn't really think about it i went out and looked in i went back in my room a few times
30:20trying to push it off telling myself that this is this is not you don't have to do it and then just
30:28the voices came in my head and said this is the only way you're going to be able to go home
30:32and i just went and picked somebody and i'm right and i don't remember what number room it was i ran in
30:41went up to the right went in a room and i did what i did and i don't really have the heart to go into
30:49detail to it right now
30:52i asked him why he had his shoes off because that was concerned when we saw his shoes off of
31:01maybe he had committed a rape against her in there he said no he did not rape her he did not have any
31:06intention of raping her and he said that he took his shoes off because he didn't want to leave shoe
31:10marks on the floor as he was cleaning it in the room where he killed her
31:13we know you were in there for about 14 minutes what was the 14 minutes i mean that's a long time
31:24because she wasn't gone yet i made the mistake when i went in i hit her and then i just grabbed her neck
31:34and i just i was joking her then i started worrying about cleaning whatever up
31:40and i kept having to go back and keep cleaning stuff up because i was sweating really bad and i
31:46kept was stripping on the floor so i kept trying to wipe it up i had to do that like three times
31:58he was ultimately charged with second degree murder had we found out that he had raped her we would have
32:03perhaps gone in a different direction but yes there was definitely discussion about that and about doing
32:09the death penalty but we decided that second degree would be the best course
32:15there's some statutorial requirements that we thought we would have the best chance of conviction as second degree
32:24but before the trial could take place
32:26had roca begins to engage in self-destructive activity within custody
32:30several times he actually tried committing suicide in the jail
32:43tried drowning himself in the toilet he tried starving himself he tried hanging himself at one point
32:48all of which were unsuccessful the deputies were able to intervene
32:54he was put in segregation because he couldn't be around anybody he would start fights
32:58he was just uncontrollable
33:01from all accounts from his psychological reports he just would not communicate with the psychologist
33:10or the psychiatrist or whomever was evaluating him he would sit off in a dark corner and cover himself
33:16with a blanket and refuse to participate in anything
33:18so the medical staff had him evaluated and during that evaluation they found him a competent
33:31Steven Avroca is ruled mentally unsound and the trial is postponed indefinitely
33:37the doctors were worried that there might never be justice for Tina and her family
33:50I really felt that that was not right because he told us in the interview
33:54that he knew what he was doing
33:57although he had a different way of thinking
34:00he knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences for that
34:07I absolutely think it was a game
34:09because he was clearly able to articulate what he did
34:12and he articulated that multiple times to multiple different people
34:15he knew what he did was wrong
34:17he recognized that
34:18he was not a stupid person by any stretch of the imagination
34:23he had been so familiar with the court system throughout his life
34:28he understood what that system looked like
34:30and what trial looked like
34:31and how to communicate with his attorneys
34:33I know that is a common play that is used especially with him being a known drug user
34:40so I wasn't completely shocked to see that
34:43I was more shocked to see that they kept going back and forth
34:46feeling incompetent and then incompetent
34:50so really for two years it was a wait and see period
34:54and there's a lot of frustrations from not only Tina's husband
34:58but also from law enforcement because this is a man that they want to convict
35:02and they want to get behind bars and make sure that he is never on the streets again
35:09and for Gerald it was a very emotional process
35:12there was no closure for him
35:14he wanted justice for Tina
35:16he wanted this man to be put away behind bars
35:21it was not unexpected that he would be ruled incompetent
35:25but it wasn't what I'd hoped for
35:27there's no justice for Tina and there's no peace for me
35:32I believe in the court system and I have to because that's
35:36what other choice do I have?
35:37it is only in November 2023
35:47two and a half years after the brutal murder of Tina Strader
35:50that Stephen Havroga is finally found competent to stand trial
35:55they went back and forth for years on whether or not he was going to be competent to stand trial
36:02so when he finally was found competent I think the third time back in 2023 it was great
36:07in preparation for the trial investigators also delve into Havroga's troubled past
36:14he tells me all about his issues after prison
36:21he said he got out of prison and he said that he couldn't really find his way
36:25he stated that he was looking forward to getting into weight lifting and exercising
36:34and wanted to be a trainer and become a better person
36:39but he just could not follow through with it because of his mental health issues
36:45he knew he had mental health issues
36:47he said that he heard voices in his head all the time
36:52he said that these voices told him to do bad things
36:55and when he would work out those voices would go away
36:59having known him basically since my career started to seeing where he was now
37:07can't say I was completely shocked by it
37:10but yeah it was pretty up there in far as the realm of craziness
37:19he is covered the top of his head his face neck chest back everything and tattoos
37:26mainly he got in prison a lot of the tattoos are a neo-nazi Aryan brotherhood realm of tattoos
37:37he thinks that some of the symbols are religious and belief and not following those ideologies
37:45that's his explanation of it
37:47when he was ruled competent to stand trial this was really a big moment for Gerald
37:55it was a mix of emotions
37:59on one hand there is some relief that this trial is finally going to continue and going to move forward
38:06but on the other hand he continued to carry the grief and the sorrow of losing Tina
38:11and that was something that weighed very heavily on his heart
38:13you could tell it just in his voice and talking with him
38:16Gerald didn't continue to live in the motel
38:19last times that I spoke with him and met with him
38:23it was at a small home
38:25just a few miles away from where the murder had happened
38:30around Gerald's neck he often carried a memory of Tina with him
38:33he wore a necklace of her thumbprint
38:36and that was something that he said was a part of Tina that would always remain with him forever
38:51on the 3rd of February 2025
38:54Stephen Havroka changes his plea to guilty of second degree murder
39:00we found out just days before his actual sentencing
39:03so I was surprised that we were finally going to be coming to our resolution
39:08and I was very happy at the same time
39:10I was in the room and he didn't recognize me
39:15but it was very satisfying to finally get him to tell a judge
39:23this is what I did just like he told us
39:30he told the judge that he was responsible for her death
39:35he didn't really express any type of remorse
39:39I know that the state attorney read a victim impact statement from Tina's daughter
39:44and yeah, he didn't offer any type of apologies
39:48just admitted that he did it
39:50and that was kind of the end of his story
39:54he was sentenced to two life sentences
39:56and that included some of the offenses that he had committed while he was in jail
40:04I'd say the stars kind of aligned on this case
40:07if we didn't get him right then
40:09like I said, that's a very robust residential community
40:14who knows if he did a home invasion
40:17what else he had on his mind
40:22you had a very evil man
40:25commit an extremely evil act for no reason
40:28and you had a victim that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time
40:34and there was no other reason for it other than that
40:39we now have an animal that's off of the streets
40:42he's not going to be able to hurt anybody anymore
40:44but Tina's family will forever be suffering with this
40:47so one of the hard things in all of this story
40:55which remains so tragic
40:57is Gerald wasn't even here for the sentencing
41:00he had ultimately passed away
41:02and he wasn't here to receive the justice
41:05and to learn the justice for Tina that he had so wanted
41:09he wanted
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