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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 just pure evil in his face.
01:25You're right.
01:26Venice, Florida, April 20th, 2021.
01:32Police respond to a call about a gravely wounded woman found in the roadway in from an employee
01:37at 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.
02:19We actually had one of our guys parked in the parking lot of the roadway when the call
02:27came out.
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 them 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.
03:19When 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 time frame together.
04:22It was 205 on her, on her...
04:27Yeah, a vacant list.
04:28It was on her vacant list.
04:29Yes.
04:30So she told you she was there at 849?
04:32At 849.
04:33And I texted her right back.
04:35She texted both those messages at 849.
04:37I 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.
04:46I went to the third floor and I saw Liz with the third floor girl.
04:50I said, have you seen Tina at all?
04:52She said, she's on the second floor.
04:54I 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 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
05:11to his wheelchair.
05:13But he called for Ryan.
05:15Her head was right by the water heater and she was kind of laying half in that room and
05:23half right there in front of the sink.
05:26Okay.
05:27And she was in a pool of blood under her head and it was smeared over here on the floor too.
05:33Okay.
05:34And she had a rag in her mouth.
05:36Okay.
05:37Like 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.
05:49She was there alone.
05:50She was an employee.
05:52We knew she was in there cleaning the room.
05:54There was some blood on the floor.
05:56One 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.
06:06From 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.
06:17He told me something's not right here.
06:25What 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.
06:38Just a verbal exchange.
06:40And she goes into the room and her husband leaves the opposite direction.
06:47Only a minute later, we see someone.
06:50He walks towards the room.
06:52You can see him look inside.
06:54He then walks back towards his room, which was 209, just around the corner.
06:58And then he comes back and you see him walk into the room.
07:05He's in there for 14 minutes.
07:10He leaves the room and leaves the hotel.
07:16What was really scary with that tape is you see just this sinister look on his face.
07:41Both before and after he enters the room, he's smiling and he looks like he's proud of himself.
07:54It 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.
08:10I interviewed the motel staff.
08:13I 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.
08:22Created a lot of issues with some of the other tenants.
08:25The staff themselves were not comfortable being around him.
08:28My wife cleaned, I think it was 209 yesterday and said something to the management that something wasn't right about that guy.
08:41She'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.
08:47He had a lot of tattoos, which has nothing to do with it.
08:51The tattoos aren't the point.
08:52It doesn't really matter.
08:53It was more his eyes.
08:55He gave me a look.
08:56I don't know.
08:57It was weird.
08:58He had dark eyes.
08:59His eyes were black.
09:00So I called my husband before I went back to the room to give him his towels and I had my husband come up.
09:07And then I handed the guy the towels.
09:09He said, thank you.
09:10He went on about his business.
09:11And he just sat there with the door open, smoking, listening to a lot of music, loud music.
09:17Everybody that came in contact with him, he would not let them look.
09:23He was not a nice guy.
09:25He 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.
09:36You really didn't know what was behind the eyes.
09:45Investigators 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.
09:57Room 205 was where Tina was located.
09:59So in there we had, again, her clothing.
10:02We had the towel that was stuffed in her mouth, a lanyard that she had been wearing, her hearing aid, some blood swabs.
10:08At 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.
10:20So we were outside the room.
10:22We started making announcements for him to come out and there was no response.
10:26So we thought we were probably going to have to make entry.
10:29Within 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.
10:45Police fanned across the hotel property in a desperate search for the suspect from room 209, but he was nowhere to be found.
10:56They knew it was a race against time to apprehend a violent killer who might strike again.
11:02April 20th, 2021.
11:12Police are searching for their prime suspect in the attack on Tina Strader when they catch a break.
11:18Through interviewing the motel staff, they learn the name of their suspect, Steven Havrilka.
11:25Steven Havrilka has an extensive criminal history.
11:34I worked that area he grew up in.
11:36I started my career down there.
11:38He was one of those kids that started with the vehicle burglaries and we kind of just dealt with him on that aspect.
11:44And 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.
11:56If you had a crime committed in that area, he was always a person of interest at the time if he was out of jail.
12:03As 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 region's bank.
12:17He has his arms outstretched.
12:20He is proclaiming that he is Jesus.
12:22And this is when the 911 calls start coming in.
12:26We start hearing calls for backup from the deputy that responded to the bank down the road for the suspicious person.
12:36To 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,
12:51Hey, I think he's out with, you know, Steven Havrilka, who's our suspect here.
12:56At 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 because they saw this guy and they said,
13:09You know what? He doesn't look right. There's something off about him.
13:14People thought he was crazy. They didn't know if he was on something, but he was getting down on his knees, acting like he was on a cross.
13:22Not normal behavior for somebody at roughly 11 o'clock in the morning in front of a bank.
13:29When the callers called, there was one female that said that he was stripping down and maybe possibly fondling himself.
13:36There was another caller that stated that he was on his hands and knees praying.
13:41When I got there, there was two deputies, they were just placing handcuffs on Havrilka.
13:51He was on his belly face down. He was like trying to buck them off. At that point, I came up and I helped him out.
13:59I tried to hold him down and he just, it felt like superhuman strength.
14:03I remember I was trying to hold his legs and hamstrings down and he was like bucking me up.
14:11I heard you saying things like she and her and knowing that he had some involvement, likely what happened to Tina.
14:19I took out my, my cell phone. I started recording just in case he made any like spontaneous statements about what he did there.
14:26Stop, stop, stop, relax, relax, relax, relax, relax.
14:30I can't do nothing.
14:33I can't do nothing.
14:35No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
14:36She told me.
14:37I don't care.
14:39Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
14:42Stop, stop, stop, stop.
14:43Steven man, I need you to come down for me.
14:45Calm down for me.
14:46Calm down, calm down.
14:49Calm down.
14:50Calm down.
14:51Relax.
14:52Calm down.
14:53We're gonna get an ambulance to check you out.
14:55an ambulance to check you out, OK, man?
14:59He was trying to eat grass.
15:02He was just delusional.
15:04He looked like he was definitely
15:05under the influence of drugs.
15:09Stop eating grass, man.
15:11Stop eating the grass.
15:13Mommy, I wasn't really you.
15:15I was done with you.
15:18Mommy, don't hurt me.
15:21Stop it.
15:21Stop it.
15:22He did the grass.
15:23Stop it.
15:23Stop it.
15:24He told me I had to kill him.
15:26He told me I had to kill him.
15:28Ah!
15:29Ah!
15:30Ah!
15:39Some of the deputies that were there
15:41knew him from past encounters.
15:43So luckily, they were able to kind of talk him down
15:46a little bit so he didn't end up fighting them.
15:49And they were able to take him into custody.
15:51And ultimately, he was transported to the hospital
15:53because 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
16:04got out of a swimming pool.
16:05He obviously had something going on, a mental situation
16:08or a drug situation.
16:11In the hospital, they're checking his blood toxicity,
16:14making sure that he doesn't have any kind of injuries.
16:17So he's just there basically for medical clearance at this point.
16:23At that point, he was pretty sedated.
16:27We 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.
16:38Tina, 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
16:48to question him about the attack on Tina Strader,
16:51who remains in critical condition.
16:54Investigators can only wait and hope that she will wake up
16:57and give a statement about what happened in room 205.
17:01Venice, Florida, April 2021.
17:11Tina Strader is in critical condition after a brutal attack in the roadway in.
17:18A few hours after being rushed to the hospital,
17:22Tina passes away from her injuries.
17:26There's no easy way for us to tell someone that their loved one has died,
17:29especially in a manner such as this.
17:34We all dread it.
17:35It's the worst part of the job.
17:39I feel so awful for her and her family and what they've gone through.
17:44I can't even imagine the depth of pain that it must be for them.
17:52Gerald was what you would expect of a very grieving husband.
17:56He was very emotional.
17:58He really described Tina as everything to him,
18:00with the reason for him to continue living,
18:02the reason for waking up every single day.
18:05And when we were speaking with him,
18:07you could just see the pain and the hurt that he was carrying,
18:11both on the outside and the inside.
18:13I think about her every day and what she deserves.
18:20She was the biggest giver, the biggest, biggest heart,
18:24the biggest genuine soul of anybody I've ever known in my entire life.
18:28From what I learned from Gerald,
18:36Tina just appeared to be a very infectious person,
18:39somebody that was willing to help others,
18:41somebody 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 had 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.
19:02Gerald and Tina were really living out their honeymoon phase here in Florida.
19:09They were making friends, they loved going to the beach.
19:12Gerald did have some health problems, but Tina was working to take care of him.
19:16He used a wheelchair to get around, and he was also employed at the motel as well,
19:20sort of as a maintenance man.
19:22So the two of them were really trying to build a life together here in Florida.
19:32initially at the hospital, some things were not observed that were observed in the autopsy.
19:46For instance, the severe amount of bruising to her head and a shoe imprint that we found on her face.
19:54With everything that's going on in the hospital, with all the tubes and everything,
19:57that was not necessarily visible at that time.
20:02We want to know exactly how she died.
20:05Even though we have a lot of evidence pointing us to a certain cause of death,
20:10we need a definitive answer.
20:11We need somebody in a medical background telling us this is what she actually died of.
20:22On the 21st of April 2021, Sarasota Sheriff's Department hold a press conference
20:28to inform the community of the 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 conference.
20:43You could tell the sense of urgency when we were out there.
20:47We knew that something very bad had happened inside that room.
20:50By 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.
21:00So we are following up leads today, interviewing people, looking at video, things of that nature.
21:05So it is still a very active investigation.
21:07We found out it was strangulation, not by a cord or a rope, but by crushing force,
21:19which could only be done by somebody's hands.
21:26Not to our surprise, Havruka was uncooperative when interviewed.
21:30However, through the investigation, detectives have learned that Havruka did not know the victim.
21:36I can only imagine that he may have spent his days perhaps observing her
21:41at the roadway in where she was employed and he was staying.
21:46As 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.
21:57Havruka's prior crimes range from battery, domestic battery by strangulation,
22:03burglary with a battery, battery of a detained person,
22:07battery 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.
22:16He is an animal.
22:18He also has tattoos that depict his certain symbols of white supremacy.
22:24The victim in this case was doing her job, was certainly terrorized, battered,
22:34and now is deceased.
22:36As this investigation continues,
22:38we are committed to working with the state attorney's office
22:40to see that this man is put away for the rest of his life.
22:44While Stephen Havruka is in the hospital,
22:49he talks to the police about what happened that morning
22:52and admits to some harrowing details of the crime.
22:56I did initially attempt to talk to him at the hospital,
23:07and he would not talk with me.
23:11However, what was interesting is that we had deputies
23:15that had to go with him everywhere that he went as an inmate,
23:18and at the hospital, we admitted to the offense on several occasions
23:22to several of the corrections deputies.
23:28I went ahead and I got high and I was up for about a week,
23:31and when I was up for about a week,
23:33I fell into a hairbrush with a little baby,
23:35just walked out the door, and then I took a left,
23:37and when I took to the left,
23:39I sensed that there was a woman right there in that room
23:42because there was 20 inmates there,
23:43but there could have been a guy.
23:45When I went in there, I took a left,
23:48and then when I took the left,
23:50I went there, and she was in the room,
23:51and I said, hey, and when she came in the room, I hit her,
23:54and when I hit her, she fell on the floor.
23:56When she fell on the floor,
23:58I started choking her and I stomped on her.
24:09Stephen Havruka is released from the hospital
24:12and taken straight into custody.
24:14He refuses to tell investigators
24:17anything else about that morning
24:19or why he chose to attack Tina Strader,
24:21so the investigators have to piece together
24:23the events themselves.
24:25We knew that she had been kicked in the face
24:28because we could see the shoe print,
24:30and we couldn't find his shoes,
24:33and we wanted to know
24:34if he had dumped any additional evidence,
24:36so we did a canine track.
24:38We actually did several of them
24:39in order to try to recover
24:40any of this potential evidence,
24:42and that canine track led us to the wooded area
24:46where we located some of his clothing
24:48and some narcotics.
24:50By his own admission,
24:52he said that he had ingested methamphetamine
24:54in those woods immediately after the murder.
24:58Once he's now high on meth,
25:00he exits the wooded area
25:02and starts walking southbound on Tamiami Trail,
25:05which is a very heavily traveled roadway.
25:10It was either the day after
25:11or two days after we assisted
25:13in canvassing the neighborhood back behind
25:15where he walked down Gentian
25:16trying to locate video surveillance.
25:20At one home right behind
25:22where the roadway is located on Gentian,
25:25I found someone that did have video surveillance
25:28of him walking down the street.
25:32Investigators then catch a break
25:34when Habroka's DNA is discovered
25:36on Tina's lanyard.
25:40The only piece of evidence
25:41that we had both Tina and Habroka's DNA on
25:44was her lanyard,
25:46which was great for the case
25:47because she had obviously been wearing that
25:49at the time of the crime.
25:51And then the rest of the items
25:52were all just her DNA.
25:58His room, we didn't end up
25:59sending anything off for testing.
26:01At that point,
26:02we were very confident
26:03in the case that we had
26:04and were limited
26:05with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
26:07on how many pieces of evidence we can send.
26:09So we sent what we felt were the most important pieces
26:12for them to test.
26:15Detectives also interview Habroka's family members
26:18to gain more insight into his character.
26:22They stated he was a good kid.
26:24When he's on drugs,
26:25he's not the same person that he normally is.
26:28They don't know what happened here,
26:31but this is not normally who he is.
26:35I know they're not a family of well-means,
26:37so I don't know how much
26:39they could actually help him out with.
26:43Him, his mother, his sister,
26:45they tried getting him
26:46into several different,
26:47you know, outpatient treatment programs.
26:50None of them succeeded
26:52or he didn't qualify for.
26:56His mom did tell us that around,
26:58but she said between 9 and 9.30,
27:00the day of the murder,
27:01that Steven texted her.
27:02And it was just a very bizarre text
27:05that he was moonwalking
27:06and talk of rainbows.
27:08And she said it made absolutely no sense.
27:10And we found out that that was
27:12almost immediately after the murder.
27:18While the Sarasota Sheriff's Office
27:20builds their case against Habroka,
27:22they continue to try to talk to him.
27:25Detectives have a confession
27:26from Steven Habroka,
27:27but still do not know his motive.
27:31He flat out refused to talk to us.
27:34Approximately two or three weeks later,
27:35I happened to check my email
27:37and I was told that he wanted to talk
27:39to the detectives about this case.
27:44So around lunchtime,
27:45myself and Detective Patella
27:46went to the jail.
27:48We went to the proper room.
27:49And at that time,
27:50Mr. Habroka was brought in by the deputies.
27:54He was a very subdued state
27:55compared to what we had
27:56normally seen him in previously.
27:59And then he decided
28:00he was going to tell us what happened.
28:11April 2021, Venice, Florida.
28:15Detectives are interviewing Steven Habroka
28:17for the murder of Tina Strader
28:19at the Roadway Inn Motel.
28:23We were told that you wanted to speak with us.
28:26I just want to tell you all what happened.
28:28Okay.
28:28That's it.
28:30I remember I was working out that night
28:31and I went to go try and have a drink
28:35and clear my head a few places down
28:38at this Wally's place, but it was closed.
28:40So I went back and said,
28:41all right, that's fine.
28:44Went and got like a four pack of beer or something
28:46and just sat in there and was just,
28:50was kind of getting in my head,
28:52which I had been doing for a long time
28:54and it's a dangerous place.
28:58Well, I went across the street to Checkers
29:00and when I went across the street to Checkers,
29:02I, 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,
29:16for a week.
29:17I didn't really leave.
29:18I'd come out.
29:19I was paranoid.
29:20And some of it had to do with, with some drug use,
29:23but a lot of it was already there.
29:26Everything inside my head got more vivid and louder
29:28because I wasn't, I was,
29:30that's the only place I was at.
29:32I had this, this voice in my head
29:35that was telling me that I don't belong here,
29:38that I belong, I'm meant to go home
29:40and I'm from hell or something.
29:42They just kept repeating over and over and over and over and over again
29:46to where I would actually believe them.
29:49The last thing that I thought that I,
29:52that this was heaven and that I was,
29:55I was from hell and I don't belong here
29:57and I needed to go home to my family.
29:59And the only way I could go home to my family
30:01is if I did what I did and I just went outside
30:06and I just picked the first person that I seen.
30:11I didn't, I didn't really think about it.
30:16I went out and I looked in,
30:17I went back in my room a few times,
30:19tried to push it off,
30:20telling myself that this is, this is not,
30:24you don't have to do it.
30:26And then just voices came in my head and said,
30:29this 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 in,
30:38I don't remember what number of room it was.
30:40I ran in and went up to the right,
30:42went in a room and I did what I did.
30:46And I don't, I don't really have the heart
30:48to go into detail to it right now.
30:55I asked him why he had his shoes off,
30:58because that was concern when we saw his shoes off
31:00and 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
31:08because he didn't want to leave shoe marks on the floor
31:10as he was cleaning it in the room where he killed her.
31:16We know you were in there for about 14 minutes.
31:18What was the 14 minutes?
31:20I mean, that's a long time.
31:22Because 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.
31:40And I kept having to go back and keep cleaning stuff up
31:44because I was sweating really bad.
31:45And I kept, it was dripping on the floor.
31:48So I kept trying to wipe it up.
31:50I had to do that like three times.
31:57He was ultimately charged with second degree murder.
31:59Had we found out that he had raped her,
32:01we would have perhaps gone in a different direction.
32:04But yes, there was definitely discussion about that
32:07and about doing death penalty.
32:09But we decided that second degree would be the best course.
32:14There's some statutorial requirements
32:16that we thought we would have the best chance
32:19of conviction as second degree.
32:21But before the trial could take place,
32:25Hadroka begins to engage in self-destructive activity within custody.
32:38Several 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.
32:53He was put in segregation
32:54because he couldn't be around anybody.
32:56He would start fights.
32:57He was just uncontrollable.
33:04From all accounts from his psychological reports,
33:06he just would not communicate with the psychologist
33:09or the psychiatrist or whomever was evaluating him.
33:12He would sit off in a dark corner
33:14and cover himself with a blanket
33:16and refuse to participate in anything.
33:18So the medical staff had him evaluated
33:23and during that evaluation they found him incompetent.
33:27Steven Avroka is ruled mentally unsound
33:32and the trial is postponed indefinitely.
33:35Detectors are worried that there might never be justice
33:39for Tina and her family.
33:49I really felt that that was not right because he told us in the interview
33:53that he knew what he was doing.
33:56Although he had a different way of thinking,
33:58he 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.
34:11And he articulated that multiple times to multiple different people.
34:14He knew what he did was wrong.
34:16He recognized that.
34:17He 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
34:30and 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.
34:43I 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,
34:57but also from law enforcement because this is a man that they want to convict.
35:01And they want to get behind bars and make sure that he is never on the streets again.
35:08And 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.
35:21It 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,
35:35what other choice do I have?
35:37It is only in November 2023,
35:46two 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.
36:01So when he finally was found competent, I think the third time back in 2023, it was great.
36:08In preparation for the trial, investigators also delve into Havroga'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 and wanted to be a trainer and become a better person.
36:37But he just could not follow through with it because of his mental health issues.
36:44He 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.
37:09But 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.
37:27A 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.
37:50When he was ruled competent to stand trial, this was really a big moment for Gerald.
37:56It 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.
38:14You could tell it just in his voice and talking with him.
38:17Gerald didn't continue to live in the motel.
38:19The last time that I spoke with him and met with him, it was a small home just a few miles away from where the murder had happened.
38:28Around Gerald's neck, he often carried a memory of Tina with him.
38:33He wore a necklace of her thumbprint.
38:35And that was something that he said was a part of Tina that would always remain with him forever.
38:41On the 3rd of February, 2025, Stephen Havroka changes his plea to guilty of second-degree murder.
38:58We found out just days before his actual sentencing, so I was surprised that we were finally going to be coming to our resolution, and I was very happy at the same time.
39:11I was in the room, and he didn't recognize me, but it was very satisfying to finally get him to tell a judge, this is what I did, just like he told us.
39:29He told the judge that he was responsible for her death.
39:34He 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, and 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.
40:04I'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, and you had a victim that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there was no other reason for it other than that.
40:36We now have an animal that's off of the streets.
40:42He's not going to be able to hurt anybody anymore, but Tina's family will forever be suffering with this.
40:47So one of the hard things in all of this story, which remains so tragic, is Gerald wasn't even here for the sentencing.
40:59He had ultimately passed away, and he wasn't here to receive the justice and to learn the justice for Tina that he had so wanted.
41:08He wanted to be a matter ofán.
41:09He wanted to find that he was still a man.
41:10He wanted to be an attack beast.
41:11He was so sick.
41:12He wanted to stay with us, so he was so excited.
41:13He was so prepared with this, and we were so prepared.
41:14And I remember that he was so excited.
41:15But now I hope he didn't give up to you.
41:16That's what he wanted.
41:17You've already had my heartburn.
41:18Go to boycott.
41:19You've seen thin airbang.
41:20Go to boycott if you leave the rest.
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