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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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00:00Open the door right now, I could see her foot.
00:04She had a washcloth that was stuffed in her mouth
00:07and a shoe print on the side of her face.
00:10From prior incidents at the hotel,
00:13we knew there was pretty good surveillance there, a lot of cameras.
00:17We see someone walk into the room,
00:19and he's in there for 14 minutes.
00:23He leaves the room and leaves the hotel.
00:25You see just this sinister look on his face.
00:31You really didn't know what was behind the eyes.
00:35He's just pure evil, in my opinion.
00:37He always has been.
00:39He knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences for that.
00:55He's just pure evil, you more than you afraid
00:56of your face.
00:57I have no idea what was wrong.
00:58He didn't know what was wrong.
00:58He didn't know what was wrong, he didn't know what was wrong.
00:59He didn't know what was wrong.
01:01He didn't know what was wrong.
01:07Venice, Florida.
01:08April 20th, 2021.
01:12Police respond to a call about a gravely wounded woman
01:15found in the roadway in from an employee at the hotel
01:18and the woman's husband.
01:20An employee from the hotel, Ryan, reported that a woman was found in room 205.
01:28When he was talking to the dispatch, he said that it looks like she fell.
01:36She's got blood all around her. There's blood coming out of her nose and mouth.
01:41She's got very shallow breathing. He put his hand on her chest and could feel a heartbeat.
01:46When he found her, he also noticed that there was a towel in her mouth.
01:53He pulled the towel out, just tried to resuscitate her at that point.
02:02We actually had one of our guys parked in the parking lot of the roadway when the call came out.
02:09My initial thought was likely a drug overdose.
02:14At 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.
02:24When I first got there, the paramedics and firefighters, they were arriving on scene.
02:30I went up the stairway with them and one of our deputies was already there providing first aid.
02:36And, you know, as soon as the paramedics got there, they took over first aid.
02:41And I kind of just stood outside the room in the doorway just to maintain the scene.
02:47The 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.
03:00When they found her, she was half in the closet with her feet sticking out so they could see her feet from the doorway.
03:06So when they pulled her, there was a trail of blood from the closet to where she was ultimately bound by first responders.
03:15She had some trauma to her face and to her neck.
03:19What stood out the most is that she had a shoe print on the side of her face.
03:24As far as we knew, she hadn't been down too long because Ryan did see her chest rise.
03:29He had been performing CPR.
03:31So any signs of life, our first priority is preservation of life.
03:35So they're going to transport her to the hospital to see if they can save her.
03:38As Tina's rushed to the hospital, detectives pulled Gerald aside and asked him some questions.
03:48We needed to speak with him.
03:49We needed to get more information about some of the things that he saw because he was living there.
03:53He was on scene when this happened.
03:56He was one of our best witnesses to put a time frame together.
04:04It was 205 on her, on her?
04:06Yeah, a vacant list.
04:07It was on her vacant list.
04:08It was on her vacant list.
04:09Yes.
04:10So she told you she was there at 849?
04:11At 849.
04:12And I texted her right back.
04:14She texted both those messages at 849.
04:17I texted her back at 851 and she didn't text me back.
04:20So what time did you end up going and looking?
04:23Honestly, it must have been right after 952.
04:26I went to the third floor and I saw Liz with the third floor girl.
04:31I said, have you seen Tina at all?
04:33She said, she's on the second floor.
04:35I said, well, she's supposed to be down there, but I don't see her anywhere.
04:38I went back up and went 205 and opened the door and I could see her foot.
04:47He's got some physical disabilities, so he wasn't able to actually go into the room due to his wheelchair, but he called for Ryan.
04:56Her 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.
05:06Okay.
05:07And she was in a pool of blood under her head and it was smeared over here on the floor, too.
05:13Okay.
05:14And she had a rag in her mouth, like stuffed way down in her mouth.
05:19That was wadded like this and stuck down in her throat.
05:23Something just didn't seem right with the whole circumstance.
05:29She was there alone.
05:30She was an employee.
05:32We knew she was in there cleaning the room.
05:34There was some blood on the floor.
05:36One of our guys on our unit immediately went down to the front office to start checking video to see if there's anything unusual.
05:46From prior incidents at the hotel, we knew there was pretty good surveillance there, a lot of cameras.
05:53He calls me up shortly after, like within minutes.
05:57He told me something's not right here.
06:06What you see in the video is Tina approaches room 205 with her cart.
06:14You see her husband kind of in the background and they look like they're having some type of an exchange, just verbal exchange.
06:21And she goes into the room and her husband leaves the opposite direction.
06:27Only a minute later, we see someone.
06:30He walks towards the room.
06:32You can see him look inside.
06:34He then walks back towards his room, which was 209, just around the corner.
06:42And then he comes back and you see him walk into the room.
06:52He's in there for 14 minutes.
06:56He leaves the room and leaves the hotel.
07:04What was really scary with that tape is you see just this sinister look on his face.
07:22Both before and after he enters the room, he's smiling and he looks like he's proud of himself.
07:34It was gut-wrenching to watch that.
07:36Investigators speak to the staff at the roadway in to learn more about the man staying in room 209.
07:50I interviewed the motel staff.
07:54I was tasked with speaking to them about any interactions they had had with him during that time.
07:58He was not favorably looked upon as a guest, created a lot of issues with some of the other tenants.
08:04The staff themselves were not comfortable being around him.
08:08My wife claimed, I think it was 209 yesterday and said something to the management that something wasn't right about that guy.
08:22She's like, keep an eye on this guy because there's just something not right about him.
08:26I don't know what it is.
08:29He had a lot of tattoos, which has nothing to do with it.
08:31Tattoos aren't the point.
08:33Yeah.
08:34It was more his eyes.
08:35He gave me a look.
08:36I don't know.
08:37It was weird.
08:38He had dark eyes.
08:39His eyes were black.
08:42So I called my husband before I went back to the room to give him his towels and I had my husband come up.
08:48And then I handed the guy the towels.
08:50He said, thank you.
08:51He went on about his business.
08:52And he just sat there with the door open, smoking, listening to a lot of music, loud music.
08:58Everybody that came in contact with him, he would not let them know.
09:04He was not a nice guy.
09:06He 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.
09:16You really didn't know what was behind the eyes.
09:25Investigators 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.
09:34Room 205 was where Tina was located.
09:39So in there we had, again, her clothing.
09:42We had the towel that was stuffed in her mouth, a lanyard that she had been wearing, her hearing aid, some blood swabs.
09:48At 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.
10:00So we were outside the room.
10:02We start making announcements for him to come out and there's no response.
10:07So we thought we were probably going to have to make entry.
10:11Within 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.
10:26Police fanned across the hotel property in a desperate search for the suspect from room 209, but he was nowhere to be found.
10:36They knew it was a race against time to apprehend a violent killer who might strike again.
10:42April 20th, 2021.
10:52Police are searching for their prime suspect in the attack on Tina Strader when they catch a break.
10:59Through interviewing the motel staff, they learn the name of their suspect, Steven Havrilka.
11:05Steven Havrilka has an extensive criminal history.
11:14I worked that area he grew up in.
11:16I started my career down there.
11:18He was one of those kids that started with the vehicle burglaries and we kind of just dealt with him on that aspect.
11:24And then it became every briefing, he would do something or he'd be a person of interest in doing something.
11:29He did go to jail for a little bit of time to take us away from there.
11:35If you had a crime committed in that area, he was always a person of interest at the time if he was out of jail.
11:41As the crime scene is being processed, detectives receive a surprising call about a potential sighting of their suspect.
11:50There is a gentleman who was acting very erratic down by the regents bank.
11:57He has his arms outstretched.
12:00He's proclaiming that he's Jesus.
12:02And this is when the 911 calls start coming in.
12:05We start hearing calls for backup from the deputy that responded to the bank down the road for the suspicious person.
12:15To be honest, I didn't really pay any attention when the initial call came out because our circumstance at the hotel.
12:24But then when we start hearing our deputy down the road calling for backup, another deputy at the hotel told me,
12:32Hey, I think he's out with, you know, Steven Havrilka, who's our suspect here.
12:37At that point, I ran down to my car and I got to him as fast as I could.
12:41We 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,
12:49You know what? He doesn't look right. There's something off about him.
12:54People 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.
13:02Not normal behavior for somebody at roughly 11 o'clock in the morning in front of a bank.
13:09When the callers called, there was one female that said that he was stripping down and maybe possibly fondling himself.
13:17There was another caller that stated that he was on his hands and knees praying.
13:22When I got there, there was two deputies. They were just placing handcuffs on Havrilka. He 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. I tried to hold him down. And he just, it felt like superhuman strength.
13:43I remember I was trying to hold his legs and hamstrings down and he was like bucking me up.
13:49I heard you saying things like she and her and knowing that he had some involvement, likely what happened to Tina. I took out my cell phone. I started recording just in case he made any like spontaneous statements about what he did there.
14:05What he did there.
14:07Stop, stop, stop, stop. Relax, relax, relax.
14:11Okay, take her.
14:12Take her.
14:13Take her.
14:14Take her.
14:15I can't.
14:16I can't.
14:17She told me.
14:18I don't care.
14:19Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
14:21Let's go out.
14:22Let's go out.
14:23Let's go out.
14:24Stephen, man, I need you to come down for me.
14:26Calm down for me.
14:27Calm down.
14:28Calm down.
14:29Calm down.
14:30Calm down.
14:31Calm down.
14:32Calm down.
14:33We're going to get an ambulance to check you out.
14:36Okay, man.
14:39He was trying to eat grass.
14:42He was just delusional.
14:43He looked like he was definitely under the influence of drugs.
14:48Stop eating grass, man.
14:50Stop eating the grass.
14:52Mommy, I wasn't really you.
14:55I was dead when you told me.
14:58Don't stop eating grass.
14:59Don't stop eating grass.
15:00Don't stop eating grass.
15:01She told me.
15:02He told me I had to kill her.
15:03I'm sorry.
15:04I'm sorry.
15:05I'm sorry.
15:06I'm sorry.
15:07I'm sorry.
15:08I'm sorry.
15:09I'm sorry.
15:10I'm sorry.
15:19Some of the deputies that were there knew him from past encounters.
15:23So luckily they were able to kind of talk him down a little bit so he didn't end up fighting them.
15:29And they were able to take him into custody.
15:31And ultimately he was transported to the hospital because he was so influenced by narcotics.
15:36He was soaking wet.
15:39He had no shirt on.
15:40He had jeans that were, they felt like he just got out of a swimming pool.
15:45He obviously had something going on, a mental situation or drug situation.
15:50In the hospital, they're checking his blood toxicity, making sure that he doesn't have any kind of injuries.
15:56So he's just there basically for medical clearance at this point.
16:02At that point, he was pretty sedated.
16:05We collected his jeans and, you know, put them in a paper bag for evidence purposes, which it was later handed off to our crime scene people.
16:17Tina, she was there at the same hospital as a few rooms down, actually.
16:23Steven Havroka is too under the influence of drugs for police to question him about the attack on Tina Strader, who remains in critical condition.
16:34Investigators can only wait and hope that she will wake up and give a statement about what happened in room 205.
16:41Venice, Florida, April 2021.
16:51Tina Strader is in critical condition after a brutal attack in the roadway in.
16:58A few hours after being rushed to the hospital, Tina passes away from her injuries.
17:05There's no easy way for us to tell someone that their loved one has died, and especially in a manner such as this.
17:10We all dreaded it. It's the worst part of the job.
17:18I feel so awful for her and her family and what they've gone through.
17:23I can't even imagine the depth of pain that it must be for them.
17:31Gerald was what you would expect of a very grieving husband.
17:35He was very emotional.
17:37He really described Tina as everything to him, with the reason for him to continue living, the reason for waking up every single day.
17:45And when we were speaking with him, you could just see the pain and the hurt that he was carrying both on the outside and the inside.
17:52I think about her every day and what she deserves.
17:58She was the biggest giver, the biggest heart, the biggest genuine soul of anybody I've ever known in my entire life.
18:07From what I learned from Gerald, Tina just appeared to be a very infectious person, somebody that was willing to help others, somebody that was willing to talk to anybody that may be down on their luck and somebody that was always willing to lend a helping hand.
18:28We learned that Gerald had met Tina at a poultry plant when they were both living in Texas and Tina had this bubbly personality and something just really stuck out and caught Gerald's attention.
18:41Gerald and Tina were really living out their honeymoon phase here in Florida.
18:46They were making friends.
18:47Gerald did have some health problems, but Tina was working to take care of him.
18:56He used a wheelchair to get around and he was also employed at the motel as well, sort of as a maintenance man.
19:01So the two of them were really trying to build a life together here in Florida.
19:05initially at the hospital, some things were not observed that were observed in the autopsy.
19:25For instance, the severe amount of bruising to her head and a shoe imprint that we found on her face.
19:31With everything that's going on in the hospital, with all the tubes and everything, that was not necessarily visible at that time.
19:42We want to know exactly how she died.
19:44Even though we have a lot of evidence pointing us to a certain cause of death, we need a definitive answer.
19:51We need somebody in a medical background telling us this is what she actually died of.
19:56On 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.
20:13We knew that this was a big deal because the sheriff himself, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman, had called a press conference.
20:19You could tell the sense of urgency when we were out there.
20:26We knew that something very bad had happened inside that room.
20:29By 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.
20:38So we are following up leads today, interviewing people, looking at video, things of that nature.
20:44So it is still a very active investigation.
20:49We 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.
21:02Not to our surprise, Havruka was uncooperative when interviewed.
21:09However, through the investigation, detectives have learned that Havruka did not know the victim.
21:15I 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.
21:24As you can see, Havruka is extremely familiar with law enforcement.
21:30He is a convicted felon with 34 prior felony charges and 19 felony convictions.
21:37Havruka'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.
21:52There is no other way to describe Mr. Havruka.
21:56He is an animal.
21:58He also has tattoos that depict his certain symbols of white supremacy.
22:08The victim in this case was doing her job, was certainly terrorized, battered, and now is deceased.
22:15As this investigation continues, we are committed to working with the state attorney's office to see that this man
22:21is put away for the rest of his life.
22:26While Steven Havruka is in the hospital, he talks to the police about what happened that morning
22:31and admits to some harrowing details of the crime.
22:35I did initially attempt to talk to him at the hospital, and he would not talk with me.
22:49However, what was interesting is that we had deputies that had to go with him everywhere that he went as an inmate.
22:58And at the hospital, we admitted to the offense on several occasions to several of the corrections deputies.
23:04I went ahead, and I got high, and I was up for about a week.
23:11And when I was up for about a week, I fell into a hairbrush, and then I just walked out the door.
23:16And then I took a left, and when I took to the left, I sensed that there was a woman right there in that room
23:21because there was 20 of these there, but there could have been a guy.
23:26And I went in there, and I took a left, and then when I took a left, I went there, and she was in the room,
23:31and I said, hey, and when she came in the room, I hit her.
23:34And when I hit her, she fell on the floor.
23:36And when she fell on the floor, I started choking her, and I stomped on her.
23:41Steven Havroca is released from the hospital and taken straight into custody.
23:55He refuses to tell investigators anything else about that morning or why he chose to attack Tina Strader,
24:01so the investigators have to piece together the events themselves.
24:06We knew that she had been kicked in the face because we could see the shoot print.
24:10And we couldn't find his shoes, and we wanted to know if he had dumped any additional evidence.
24:16So we did a canine track. We actually did several of them in order to try to recover any of this potential evidence.
24:23And that canine track led us to the wooded area where we located some of his clothing and some narcotics.
24:30By his own admission, he said that he had ingested methamphetamine in those woods immediately after the murder.
24:37Once 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.
24:50Either the day after or two days after we assisted in canvassing the neighborhood back behind where he walked down Gentian,
24:56trying to locate video surveillance.
25:00At 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.
25:11Investigators then catch a break when Halvroka's DNA is discovered on Tina's lanyard.
25:18The only piece of evidence that we had both Tina and Halvroka'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.
25:29And then the rest of the items were all just her DNA.
25:33His room, we didn't end up sending anything off for testing.
25:40At 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.
25:48So we sent what we felt were the most important pieces for them to test.
25:54Detectives also interviewed Halvroka's family members to gain more insight into his character.
26:01They stated he was a good kid. When he's on drugs, he's not the same person that he normally is.
26:08They don't know what happened here, but this is not normally who he is.
26:13I know they're not a family of well-means, so I don't know how much they could actually help him out with.
26:20Him, his mother, his sister, they tried getting him into several different, you know, outpatient treatment programs.
26:29None of them succeeded or he didn't qualify for.
26:33His mom did tell us that around, but she said between 9 and 9.30, the day of the murder, that Stephen texted her.
26:41And it was just a very bizarre text that he was moonwalking and talk of rainbows.
26:47And she said it made absolutely no sense. And we found out that that was almost immediately after the murder.
26:57While the Sarasota Sheriff's Office builds their case against Halvroka, they continue to try to talk to him.
27:03Detectives have a confession from Stephen Halvroka, but still do not know his motive.
27:09He 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.
27:21So around lunchtime, myself and Detective Patella went to the jail. We went to the proper room.
27:29And at that time, Mr. Halvroka was brought in by the deputies.
27:33He was a very subdued state compared to what we had normally seen him in previously.
27:38And then he decided he was going to tell us what happened.
27:50April 2021, Venice, Florida.
27:54Detectives are interviewing Stephen Halvroka for the murder of Tina Strader at the Roadway Inn Motel.
28:00We were told that you wanted to speak with us.
28:06I just want to tell you all what happened.
28:08Okay.
28:09That's it.
28:10I remember I was working out that night and I went to go try and have a drink and clear my head.
28:16A few places down at this Wally's place, but it was closed.
28:20So I went back and said, all right, that's fine.
28:22Went and got like a four pack of beer or something and just sat in there.
28:27And, and, and, and was just, uh, was kind of getting in my head, which I had been doing for a long time.
28:34And it's, it's a dangerous place.
28:36Well, I went across the street to checkers.
28:40And when I went across the street to checkers, I, you know, just, uh, just the way the world is these days, man.
28:47And there was somebody there who was talking about drugs.
28:50And then I started using it.
28:53And it's just, I ended up staying in my hotel room for, for a week.
28:57I didn't really leave.
28:58I'd come out.
28:59I was paranoid.
29:00And some of it had to do with, with some drug use, but a lot of it was already there.
29:06Everything inside my head got more vivid and louder because I wasn't, I was, that's the only place I was at.
29:12I had this, this voice in my head that was telling me that I, that I don't belong here, that I belong, I'm meant to go home and I'm from hell or something.
29:23They just kept repeating over and over and over and over and over again to where I would actually believe them.
29:28The last thing that I thought that I, that this was heaven and that I was, uh, I was from hell and I don't belong here and I needed to go home to my family.
29:39And 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.
29:51I didn't, I didn't, I didn't really think about it.
29:56I went out and I looked in, I went back in my room a few times, tried to push it off, telling myself that this is, this is not, you don't have to do it.
30:06And then just voices came in my head and said, this is the only way you're going to be able to go home.
30:11And I just went and picked somebody and I'm right in, I don't remember what number of room it was.
30:20I ran in and went up to the right, went in a room and I did what I did.
30:26And I don't, I don't really have the heart to go into detail to it right now.
30:36I asked him why he had his shoes off.
30:39Cause that was concerned when we saw his shoes off of maybe he had committed a rape against her in there.
30:43And he said, no, he did not rape her. He did not have any intention of raping her.
30:47And 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.
30:53We know you were in there for about 14 minutes.
30:59What was the 14 minutes?
31:01I mean, that's a long time.
31:03Because she wasn't gone yet.
31:06I made the mistake when I went in, I hit her.
31:10And then I just grabbed her neck and I just, I was joking her.
31:16Then I started worrying about cleaning whatever up.
31:19And I kept having to go back and keep cleaning stuff up cause I was sweating really bad.
31:25And I kept, it was, it was dripping on the floor.
31:28So I kept trying to wipe it up.
31:30I had to do that like three times.
31:32He was ultimately charged with second degree murder.
31:39Had we found out that he had raped her, we would have perhaps gone in a different direction.
31:44But yes, there was definitely discussion about that and about doing death penalty.
31:49But we decided that second degree would be the best course.
31:52There's some statutory requirements that we thought we would have the best chance of conviction as second degree.
32:03But before the trial could take place, Havroka begins to engage in self-destructive activity within custody.
32:18Several times he actually tried committing suicide in the jail.
32:21Tried drowning himself in the toilet.
32:23He tried starving himself.
32:25He tried hanging himself at one point, all of which were unsuccessful.
32:30The deputies were able to intervene.
32:33He was put in segregation because he couldn't be around anybody.
32:37He would start fights.
32:38He was just uncontrollable.
32:44From all accounts from his psychological reports,
32:47he just would not communicate with the psychologist or the psychiatrist or whomever was evaluating him.
32:53He would sit off in a dark corner and cover himself with a blanket and refuse to participate in anything.
32:58So, the medical staff had him evaluated and during that evaluation they found him confident.
33:07Stephen Havroka is ruled mentally unsound and the trial is postponed indefinitely.
33:13Detectors are worried that there might never be justice for Tina and her family.
33:28I really felt that that was not right because he told us in the interview that he knew what he was doing.
33:37Although he had a different way of thinking, he knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences for that.
33:43I 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.
33:55He knew what he did was wrong.
33:56He recognized that.
33:58He was not a stupid person by any stretch of the imagination.
34:02He had been so familiar with the court system throughout his life.
34:07He understood what that system looked like and what trial looked like and how to communicate with his attorneys.
34:13I know that is a common play that is used especially with him being a known drug user.
34:20So, I wasn't completely shocked to see that.
34:23I was more shocked to see that they kept going back and forth, feeling incompetent and then incompetent.
34:30So, really for two years it was a wait and see period.
34:34And there's a lot of frustrations from not only Tina's husband, but also from law enforcement.
34:39Because 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.
34:48And for Gerald, it was a very emotional process.
34:51There was no closure for him.
34:53He wanted justice for Tina.
34:55He wanted this man to be put away behind bars.
34:58It was not unexpected that he would be ruled incompetent, but it wasn't what I'd hoped for.
35:07There's no justice for Tina and there's no peace for me.
35:11I believe in the court system and I have to because that's one of the choices I have.
35:17It is only in November 2023, two and a half years after the brutal murder of Tina Strader, that Stephen Havroga is finally found competent to stand trial.
35:36They went back and forth for years on whether or not he was going to be competent to stand trial.
35:41So, when he finally was found competent, I think the third time back in 2023, it was great.
35:48In preparation for the trial, investigators also delve into Havroga's troubled past.
35:54He tells me all about his issues after prison.
35:59He said he got out of prison and he said that he couldn't really find his way.
36:04He stated that he was looking forward to getting into weightlifting and exercising and wanted to be a trainer and become a better person.
36:18But he just could not follow through with it because of his mental health issues.
36:25He knew he had mental health issues.
36:27He said that he heard voices in his head all the time.
36:32He said that these voices told him to do bad things.
36:35And when he would work out, those voices would go away.
36:41Having known him basically since my career started to seeing where he was now,
36:46can't say I was completely shocked by it.
36:49But, yeah, it was pretty up there as far as the realm of craziness.
36:59He is covered.
37:00The top of his head, his face, neck, chest, back, everything in tattoos.
37:05Mainly, he got in prison.
37:07A lot of the tattoos are a neo-Nazi Aryan Brotherhood realm of tattoos.
37:15He thinks that some of the symbols are religious and belief and not following those ideologies.
37:25That's his explanation of it.
37:27When he was ruled competent to stand trial, this was really a big moment for Gerald.
37:37It was a mix of emotions.
37:39On one hand, there is some relief that this trial is finally going to continue and going to move forward.
37:46But on the other hand, he continued to carry the grief and the sorrow of losing Tina.
37:51And that was something that weighed very heavily on his heart.
37:53You could tell it just in his voice and talking with him.
37:56Gerald didn't continue to live in the motel.
37:59Last times 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.
38:07Around Gerald's neck, he often carried a memory of Tina with him.
38:13He wore a necklace of her thumbprint.
38:15And that was something that he said was a part of Tina that would always remain with him forever.
38:22On the 3rd of February, 2025, Stephen Havroka changes his plea to guilty of second degree murder.
38:38We found out just days before his actual sentencing.
38:42So I was surprised that we were finally going to be coming to our resolution.
38:47And I was very happy at the same time.
38:49I was in the room, and he didn't recognize me.
38:54But it was very satisfying to finally get him to tell a judge, this is what I did.
39:04Just like he told us.
39:09He told the judge that he was responsible for her death.
39:14He didn't really express any type of remorse.
39:18I know that the state attorney read a victim impact statement from Tina's daughter.
39:23And, yeah, he didn't offer any type of apologies.
39:27Just admitted that he did it, and that was kind of the end of his story.
39:33He was sentenced to two life sentences, and that included some of the offenses that he had committed while he was in jail.
39:39I'd say the stars kind of aligned on this case.
39:48If we didn't get him right then, like I said, that's a very robust residential community.
39:54Who knows if he did a home invasion, what else he had on his mind.
39:58You had a very evil man commit an extremely evil act for no reason.
40:07And you had a victim that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
40:13And there was no other reason for it other than that.
40:19We now have an animal that's off of the streets.
40:22He's not going to be able to hurt anybody anymore.
40:24But Tina's family will forever be suffering with this.
40:27So one of the hard things in all of this story, which remains so tragic, is Gerald wasn't even here for the sentencing.
40:40He had ultimately passed away.
40:42And he wasn't here to receive the justice and to learn the justice for Tina that he had so wanted.
40:49But that's the case.
41:01I'm sorry.
41:03I'm sorry.
41:07Bye.
41:08Bye.
41:09Bye.
41:10Bye.
41:14Bye.
41:15Bye.
41:17Bye.
41:18Bye.
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