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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.
01:02He's also experiencing painless fire.
01:06In the suicidal realm, he brings the hell out of his face.
01:08He's alsoquartered prophesying in my opinion.
01:09He's just pure evil.
01:14GEORGE RStep
01:17The police responded to a call about a gravely wounded woman found in the roadway in from
01:37an employee at the hotel and the woman's husband.
01:42An employee from the hotel, Ryan, reported that a woman was found in room 205.
01:50When he was talking to the dispatch, he said that it looks like she fell.
01:58She's got blood all around her.
02:00There'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 in 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
02:28out.
02:30My initial thought was likely a drug overdose.
02:35At this period of time, we're having a real problem with fentanyl overdoses, even to the
02:39point where we're carrying Narcan in our vest.
02:45When I first got there, the paramedics and firefighters, they were arriving on scene.
02:51I went up the stairway with him and one of our deputies was already there providing first
02:56aid.
02:57And, you know, as soon as the paramedics got there, they took over first aid.
03:02And I kind of just stood outside the room in the doorway just to maintain the scene.
03:10The victim's husband, Gerald Strader, identifies her to the police as Tina Strader and informs
03:15them that she works as a cleaner in the roadway in.
03:21When they found her, she was half in the closet with her feet sticking out so they could see
03:25her feet from the doorway.
03:27So when they pulled her, there was a trail of blood from the closet to where she was ultimately
03:33bound by first responders.
03:37She 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.
03:45As far as we knew, she hadn't been down too long because Ryan did 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.
04:02As 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
04:14there.
04:15He was on scene when this happened.
04:17He was one of our best witnesses to put a timeframe together.
04:21So what time did you end up going and looking?
04:22Honestly, it must have been right after 952.
04:28I went to the third floor and I saw Liz with the third floor girl.
04:29I said, have you seen Tina at all?
04:30She said, she's on second floor.
04:31I said, well, she's supposed to be down there, but I don't see her.
04:32I said, well, she's supposed to be down there, but I don't see her.
04:33I went back up.
04:34I went back up.
04:35I went to the third floor and I opened the door and opened the door.
04:40She said, she's on the second floor.
04:41I said, well, she's supposed to be down there, but I don't see her anywhere.
04:46I went back up 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
05:12to his wheelchair, but he called for Ryan.
05:17Her head was right by the water heater and she was kind of laying half in that room and
05:24half right there in front of the sink.
05:27And she was in a pool of blood under her head and it was smeared over here on the floor too.
05:35And she had a rag in her mouth, like stuffed way down in her mouth.
05:40That was wadded like this and stuck down in her throat.
05:45Something 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
06:05to see if there's anything unusual.
06:07From prior incidents at the hotel, we knew there was pretty good surveillance there,
06:11a lot of cameras.
06:14He calls me up shortly after, like within minutes.
06:18He told me something's not right here.
06:20What you see in the video is Tina approaches room 205 with her cart.
06:35You see her husband kind of in the background and they look like they're having some type
06:38of an exchange, just a verbal exchange.
06:42And 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.
07:03And 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.
07:20What 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.
07:56It was gut-wrenching to watch that.
08:04Investigators speak to the staff at the roadway in to learn more about the man staying in room 209.
08:11I interviewed the motel staff.
08:14I was tasked with speaking to them about any interactions they had had with him during that time.
08:19He was not favorably looked upon as a guest, created a lot of issues with some of the other tenants.
08:26The staff themselves were not comfortable being around him.
08:29My wife claimed, 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. I don't know what it is.
08:47He had a lot of tattoos, which has nothing to do with the tattoos aren't the point.
08:53Yeah.
08:54It was more his eyes. He gave me a look. I don't know. It was weird.
08:58He had dark eyes. His eyes were black.
09:01So I called my husband before I went back to the room to give him his towels and I had my husband come up.
09:08And then I handed the guy the towels. He said, thank you. 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.
09:18Everybody that came in contact with him, he would not let them in the room.
09:24He was not a nice guy. He 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 and you weren't sure what was going to happen.
09:37You really didn't know what was behind the eyes.
09:41You're not sure what they had in the room.
09:42You were not sure how they were.
09:43You, you were lying.
09:44You had the right of the door open, you told me that he was just a little, you know, you might have trouble.
09:47Investigators conduct the search of both rooms for evidence.
09:50To see if they can establish a link between Tina Strader and the man staying in room 209.
09:58Room 205 was where Tina was located. So, 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.
10:07Her hearing aid. Some blood swabs.
10:10At that point, we kind of focused our attention to his room, being that, you know, he's likely
10:17a suspect in whatever happened to Tina in room 205.
10:22So we were outside the room.
10:23We started making announcements for him to come out, and there was no response.
10:28So 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
10:38took the pee trap in his sink because we were hoping to find some more evidence that maybe
10:44he had tried to wash himself prior to leaving the hotel.
10:49Police fanned across the hotel property in a desperate search for the suspect from room
10:54209, 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.
11:08April 20th, 2021.
11:13Police are searching for their prime suspect in the attack on Tina Strader when they catch
11:18a break.
11:19Through interviewing the motel staff, they learn the name of their suspect, Steven Havrilka.
11:30Steven Havrilka has an extensive criminal history.
11:33I 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
11:43dealt with him on that aspect.
11:45And then it became every briefing, he would do something or he'd be a person of interest
11:49in doing something.
11:52He 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
12:01if he was out of jail.
12:04As the crime scene is being processed, detectives receive a surprising call about a potential
12:10sighting of their suspect.
12:13There is a gentleman who is acting very erratic down by the region's bank.
12:17He has his arms outstretched, he's proclaiming that he's Jesus, and this is when the 911 calls
12:24start coming in.
12:27We start hearing calls for backup from the deputy that responded to the bank down the
12:33road for the suspicious person.
12:37To be honest, I didn't really pay any attention when the initial call came out because our circumstance
12:43at the hotel, but then when we start hearing our deputy down the road calling for backup,
12:49another deputy at the hotel told me, hey, I think he's out with, you know, Steven Havrilka,
12:56who's our suspect here.
12:57At that point, I ran down to my car and I got to him as fast as I could.
13:04We were really fortunate with this case in that we did have all of the community support
13:08that we did because 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, they didn't know if he was on something, but he was getting
13:20down 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.
13:31When the callers called, there was one female that said that he was stripping down and maybe
13:35possibly fondling himself.
13:38There was another caller that stated that he was on his hands and knees praying.
13:47When 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 and he just, it felt like superhuman strength.
14:06I remember, I was trying to hold his legs and hamstrings down and he was like bucking
14:10me up.
14:12I heard he was saying things like she and her and knowing that he had some involvement,
14:18likely what happened to Tina, I took out my cell phone, I started recording just in
14:23case he made any spontaneous statements about what he did there.
14:35He was trying to eat grass.
15:02He was just delusional.
15:03He looked like he was definitely under the influence of drugs.
15:08Stop eating grass, man.
15:09Stop eating the grass.
15:12Mommy, I wasn't really you.
15:15I was done with you.
15:17Mommy.
15:18Stop eating the grass.
15:23She told me.
15:24She told me I had to kill her.
15:29Mommy.
15:30Mommy.
15:31Mommy.
15:32Mommy.
15:33Mommy.
15:34Mommy.
15:35Mommy.
15:36Mommy.
15:37Mommy.
15:38Mommy.
15:39Some 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 end up fighting
15:48them.
15:49And they were able to take him into custody.
15:51Unfortunately, he was transported to the hospital because he was so influenced by narcotics.
15:58He was soaking wet.
15:59He had no shirt on.
16:00He had jeans that were, they felt like he just got out of a swimming pool.
16:05He obviously had something going on, a mental situation or a drug situation.
16:10In the hospital, they're checking his blood toxicity, making sure that he doesn't have
16:14any kind of injuries.
16:16So he's just there basically for medical clearance at this point.
16:21At that point, he was pretty sedated.
16:25We collected his jeans and, you know, put them in a paper bag for evidence purposes,
16:32which 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 about the
16:49attack on Tina Strader, who remains in critical condition.
16:54Investigators can only wait and hope that she will wake up and give a statement about
16:59what happened in room 205.
17:08Venice, Florida, April, 2021.
17:11Tina Strader is in critical condition after a brutal attack in the roadway in.
17:17A few hours after being rushed to the hospital, Tina passes away from her injuries.
17:23There's no easy way for us to tell someone that their loved one has died, and especially
17:28in a manner such as this.
17:30We all dread it.
17:32It's the worst part of the job.
17:36I feel so awful for her and her family and what they've gone through.
17:42I can't even imagine the depth of pain that it must be for them.
17:51Gerald was what you would expect of a very grieving husband.
17:55He was very emotional.
17:57He really described Tina as everything to him, with the reason for him to continue living,
18:02the reason for waking up every single day.
18:05And when we were speaking with him, you could just see the pain and the hurt that he was carrying,
18:10both on the outside and the inside.
18:12I think about her every day and what she deserves.
18:19She was the biggest giver, the biggest heart, the biggest genuine soul of anybody I've ever known in my entire life.
18:27From what I learned from Gerald, Tina just appeared to be a very infectious person,
18:39somebody that was willing to help others, somebody that was willing to talk to anybody that may be down on their luck,
18:45and somebody that was always willing to lend a helping hand.
18:51We learned that Gerald had met Tina at a poultry plant when they were both living in Texas.
18:57And Tina had this bubbly personality and something just really stuck out and caught Gerald's attention.
19:04Gerald and Tina were really living out their honeymoon phase here in Florida.
19:08They were making friends. They loved going to the beach.
19:11Gerald did have some health problems, but Tina was working to take care of her.
19:14He used a wheelchair to get around, and he was also employed at the motel as well, sort of as a maintenance man.
19:21So the two of them were really trying to build a life together here in Florida.
19:25Initially, at the hospital, some things were not observed that were observed in the autopsy.
19:45For instance, the severe amount of bruising to her head and a shoe imprint that we found on her face.
19:50With everything that's going on in the hospital, with all the tubes and everything, that was not necessarily visible at that time.
19:59We want to know exactly how she died.
20:03Even though we have a lot of evidence pointing us to a certain cause of death, we need a definitive answer.
20:10We need somebody in a medical background telling us this is what she actually died of.
20:16On the 21st of April 2021, Sarasota Sheriff's Department hold a press conference to inform the community of the heinous crime that has taken place.
20:31We knew that this was a big deal because the sheriff himself, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman, had called a press conference.
20:38You could tell the sense of urgency when we were out there.
20:45We knew that something very bad had happened inside that room.
20:51By all accounts, what I'm about to share with you is one of the most egregious crimes we've seen recently here in Sarasota County.
20:58So we are following up leads today, interviewing people, looking at video, things of that nature.
21:03So it is still a very active investigation.
21:09We found out it was strangulation, not by a cord or a rope, but by crushing force, which could only be done by somebody's hands.
21:25Not to our surprise, Havruka was uncooperative when interviewed.
21:29However, through the investigation, detectives have learned that Havruka did not know the victim.
21:35I can only imagine that he may have spent his days perhaps observing her at the roadway in where she was employed and he was staying.
21:45As you can see, Havruka is extremely familiar with law enforcement.
21:50He is a convicted felon with 34 prior felony charges and 19 felony convictions.
21:56Havruka'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.
22:12There is no other way to describe Mr. Havruka.
22:14Mr. Havruka, he is an animal.
22:18He also has tattoos that depict his certain symbols of white supremacy.
22:23The victim in this case was doing her job, was certainly terrorized, battered, and now is deceased.
22:34As 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.
22:53I did initially attempt to talk to him at the hospital, and he would not talk with me.
23:08However, 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.
23:23I went ahead, and I got high, and I was up for about a week, and when I was up for about a week, I fell into a hairbrush, and then I just walked out the door, and then I took a left.
23:36And when I took to the left, I sensed that there was a woman right there in that room, because there was 20 inmates there, but there could have been a guy.
23:44When I went in there, I took a left, and then when I took a left, I went there, and she was in the room, and I said, hey, and when she came to the room, I had her.
23:53And when I hit her, and when I hit her, she fell on the floor.
23:56When she fell on the floor, I started choking her, and I stomped on her.
24:09Steven 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.
24:24We knew that she had been kicked in the face because we could see the shoe print, and we couldn't find his shoes, and we wanted to know if he had dumped any additional evidence.
24:35So we did a canine track. We actually did several of them in order to try to recover any of this potential evidence.
24:41And that canine track led us to the wooded area where we located some of his clothing and some narcotics.
24:48By his own admission, he said that he had ingested methamphetamine in those woods immediately after the murder.
24:56Once he's now high on meth, he exits the wooded area and starts walking southbound on Tamiami Trail, which is a very heavily traveled roadway.
25:09It was either the day after or two days after we assisted in canvassing the neighborhood back behind where he walked down Gentian, trying to locate video surveillance.
25:20At 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.
25:32Investigators then catch a break when Havroka's DNA is discovered on Tina's lanyard.
25:39The only piece of evidence that we had both Tina and Havroka's DNA on was her lanyard, which was great for the case because she had obviously been wearing that at the time of the crime.
25:50And then the rest of the items were all just her DNA.
25:57His room, we didn't end up sending anything off for testing.
26:00At that point, we were very confident in the case that we had and 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.
26:14Detectives also interviewed Havroka's family members to gain more insight into his character.
26:19They stated he was a good kid when he's on drugs. He's not the same person that he normally is. They don't know what happened here, but this is not normally who he is.
26:32I know they're not a family of well means, so I don't know how much they could actually help him out with.
26:39Him, his mother, his sister, they tried getting him into several different, you know, outpatient treatment programs. None of them succeeded or he didn't qualify for.
26:53His mom did tell us that around, but she said between 9 and 9 30, the day of the murder, that Steven texted her.
27:01And it was just a very bizarre text that he was moonwalking and talk of rainbows.
27:06And she said it made absolutely no sense. And we found out that that was almost immediately after the murder.
27:13While the Sarasota Sheriff's Office builds their case against Havroka, they continue to try to talk to him.
27:23Detectives 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 and I was told that he wanted to talk to the detectives about this case.
27:40So around lunchtime, myself and Detective Patella went to the jail. We went to the proper room.
27:48And at that time, Mr. Havroka was brought in by the deputies.
27:52He was a very subdued state compared to what we had normally seen him in previously.
27:57And then he decided he was going to tell us what happened.
28:01April 2021, Venice, Florida. Detectives are interviewing Steven Havroka for the murder of Tina Strader at the Roadway Inn Motel.
28:20We were told that you wanted to speak with us.
28:26I just want to tell you all what happened.
28:27Okay.
28:28That's it.
28:29I remember I was working out that night and I went to go try and have a drink and clear my head.
28:36A few places down at this Wally's place, but it was closed.
28:40So I went back and said, all right, that's fine.
28:43Went and got like a four pack of beer or something and just sat in there and was just kind of getting in my head,
28:52which I had been doing for a long time and it's a dangerous place.
28:57Well, I went across the street to checkers.
29:00And when I went across the street to checkers, I, you know, just the way the world is these days, man.
29:07And there was somebody there who was talking about drugs.
29:10And then I started using it.
29:13And it's just, I ended up staying in my hotel room for a week.
29:17I didn't really leave.
29:18I'd come out.
29:19I was paranoid and some of it had to do with some drug use, but a lot of it was already there.
29:26Everything inside my head got more vivid and louder because I wasn't, I was, that's the only place I was at.
29:32I had this, this voice in my head, this was telling me that I don't belong here, that I belong.
29:39I'm meant to go home and I'm from hell or something.
29:42They just kept repeating over and over and over and over and over and over again to where I would actually believe them.
29:49The last thing that I thought that I, that this was heaven and that I was, I was from hell and I don't belong here and I needed to go home to my family.
29:59And the only way I could go home to my family is if 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, I didn't really think about it.
30:16I went out and I looked in, I went back in my room a few times, trying to push it off, telling myself that this is, this is not, you don't have to do it.
30:26And then just voices came in my head and said, this is the only way you're going to be able to go home.
30:31And I just went and picked somebody and I'm right.
30:37And I don't remember what number of room it was.
30:39I ran in and went up to the right, went in a room and I did what I did.
30:45And I don't, I don't really have the heart to go into detail to it right now.
30:55I asked him why he had his shoes off.
30:58Cause that was concerned when we saw his shoes off of maybe he had committed a rape against her in there.
31:03And he said, no, he did not rape her.
31:04He did not have any intention of raping her.
31:06And he said that he took his shoes off cause he didn't want to leave shoe marks on the floor as he was cleaning it in the room where he killed her.
31:14We know you were in there for about 14 minutes.
31:18What was the 14 minutes?
31:21I mean, that's a long time.
31:23Because she wasn't gone yet.
31:26I made the mistake when I went in, I hit her.
31:30And then I just grabbed her neck and I just, I was joking her.
31:36Then I started worrying about cleaning whatever up.
31:39And I kept having to go back and keep cleaning stuff up cause I was sweating really bad.
31:45And I kept, I was stripping on the floor.
31:48So I kept trying to wipe it up.
31:50I had to do that like three times.
31:52He was ultimately charged with second degree murder.
31:59Had we found out that he had raped her, we would have perhaps gone in a different direction.
32:04But yes, there was definitely discussion about that and about doing death penalty.
32:09But we decided that second degree would be the best course.
32:12There's some statutory requirements that we thought we would have the best chance of conviction of second degree.
32:23But before the trial could take place, Havroka begins to engage in self-destructive activity within custody.
32:37Several times he actually tried committing suicide in the jail.
32:41He tried drowning himself in the toilet.
32:43He tried starving himself.
32:45He tried hanging himself at one point.
32:47All of which were unsuccessful.
32:49The deputies were able to intervene.
32:51He was put in segregation because he couldn't be around anybody.
32:56He would start fights.
32:57He was just uncontrollable.
33:00From all accounts from his psychological reports, he just would not communicate with the psychologist or the psychiatrist or whomever was evaluating him.
33:12He would sit off in a dark corner and cover himself with a blanket and refuse to participate in anything.
33:18So, the medical staff had him evaluated and during that evaluation they found him incompetent.
33:29Steven Havroka is ruled mentally unsound and the trial is postponed indefinitely.
33:36Detectors are worried that there might never be justice for Tina and her family.
33:41I really felt that that was not right because he told us in the interview that he knew what he was doing.
33:56Although he had a different way of thinking, he knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences for that.
34:03I absolutely think it was a game because he was clearly able to articulate what he did and he articulated that multiple times to multiple different people.
34:15He knew what he did was wrong.
34:16He recognized that.
34:18He was not a stupid person by any stretch of the imagination.
34:22He had been so familiar with the court system throughout his life.
34:27He understood what that system looked like and what trial looked like and how to communicate with his attorneys.
34:32I know that is a common play that is used especially with him being a known drug user.
34:39So, I wasn't completely shocked to see that.
34:42I was more shocked to see that they kept going back and forth, feeling incompetent and then incompetent.
34:49So, 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 but also from law enforcement
34:59because this is a man that they want to convict and they want to get behind bars and make sure that he is never on the streets again.
35:06And for Gerald it was a very emotional process.
35:11There was no closure for him.
35:13He wanted justice for Tina.
35:15He wanted this man to be put away behind bars.
35:18It was not unexpected that he would be ruled incompetent, but it wasn't what I'd hoped for.
35:27There's no justice for Tina and there's no peace for me.
35:31I believe in the court system and I have to because that's one of the choices I have.
35:44It is only in November 2023, two and a half years after the brutal murder of Tina Strader, that Steven Havroka is finally found competent to stand trial.
35:57They went back and forth for years on whether or not he was going to be competent to stand trial.
36:01So, 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 Havroka's troubled past.
36:14He tells me all about his issues after prison.
36:19He said he got out of prison and he said that he couldn't really find his way.
36:24He stated that he was looking forward to getting into weightlifting and exercising
36:33and wanted to be a trainer and become a better person.
36:38But 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,
37:06I can't say I was completely shocked by it.
37:09But yeah, it was pretty up there as far as the realm of craziness.
37:19He is covered.
37:20The top of his head, his face, neck, chest, back, everything in tattoos.
37:25Mainly, he got in prison.
37:26A lot of the tattoos are a neo-Nazi Aryan Brotherhood realm of tattoos.
37:36He thinks that some of the symbols are religious and belief and not following those ideologies.
37:44That's his explanation of it.
37:46When he was ruled competent to stand trial, this was really a big moment for Gerald.
37:56It was a mix of emotions.
37:58On one hand, there is some relief that this trial is finally going to continue and going to move forward.
38:05But on the other hand, he continued to carry the grief and the sorrow of losing Tina.
38:10And that was something that weighed very heavily on his heart.
38:13You could tell it just in his voice and talking with him.
38:15Gerald didn't continue to live in the motel the last times that I spoke with him and met with him.
38:21It was a small home just a few miles away from where the murder had happened.
38:27Around Gerald's neck, he often carried a memory of Tina with him.
38:32He 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.
38:50On the 3rd of February, 2025, Stephen Havroka changes his plea to guilty of second-degree murder.
38:59We found out just days before his actual sentencing.
39:02So I was surprised that we were finally going to be coming to our resolution.
39:07And I was very happy at the same time.
39:10I was in the room, and he didn't recognize me.
39:14But it was very satisfying to finally get him to tell a judge,
39:23this is what I did, just like he told us.
39:26He told the judge that he was responsible for her death.
39:35He didn't really express any type of remorse.
39:38I know that the state attorney read a victim impact statement from Tina's daughter.
39:43And yeah, he didn't offer any type of apologies, just admitted that he did it.
39:49And that was kind of the end of his story.
39:54He was sentenced to two life sentences, and that included some of the offenses that he had committed while he was in jail.
39:59I'd say the stars kind of aligned on this case.
40:07If we didn't get him right then, like I said, that's a very robust residential community.
40:14Who knows if he did a home invasion, what else he had on his mind.
40:18You had a very evil man commit an extremely evil act for no reason.
40:28And you had a victim that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
40:33And 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.
40:52So one of the hard things in all of this story, which remains so tragic,
40:56is Gerald wasn't even here for the sentencing.
41:00He had ultimately passed away, and he wasn't here to receive the justice
41:05and to learn the justice for Tina that he had so wanted.
41:14He was trying to make the justice and the defense.
41:17He fell so long.
41:20He fell so much.
41:22He's burning.
41:23He died so much.
41:25And he's like, so yeah.
41:26He's doing it and I can't wait for it to him.
41:28And he's like, no, man.
41:30We're from this everyone.
41:32He's like, no, no.
41:33He's like, no, no.
41:34He's like, no, no.
41:35He's like...
41:36He's working with depression.
41:37I'll follow him.
41:39And he's like, no, I don't know.
41:40He's like, no, no.
41:41He's like, I'm like.
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