TAMPA -- A suspect is under arrest in the murder of Stephanie Crone-Overholts, the woman whose body parts were found by fisherman in McKay Bay earlier this month.
Interim Police Chief Ruben Delgado announced the arrest of 69-year-old Robert Kessler Wednesday evening. Delgado said that Kessler told detectives he had taken the 47-year-old Erie, Pennsylvania woman into his Lutz home because she appeared to be homeless and living in her car. When interviewed by police, they say, Kessler insisted that she had moved out. Police got a warrant November 19th and took his van for evidence and Delgado says they matched the victim's blood, found in the van and in Kessler's home.
Kessler spoke to News Channel 8 reporter Jeff Patterson several days before the arrest, saying that police "wouldn't find any evidence" and that Crone-Overholts had problems with "gangs" that may have contributed to her death. Kessler has an arrest record dating back to the 1980s that includes several counts of cocaine sale and/or possession.
"She loved us very much and I take comfort in that. No one deserves what happened to her," her son Sean Overholts said to News Channel 8.
Sean's name, along with those of his brothers, were on the tattoo on his mother's body that Tampa Police released in order to help them identify the victim.
Watch the news conference below:
Photo: Tampa Police/Canva