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Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
ABC 20/20‘s “The Hungryland Homicide” looks into Air Force veteran Tricia Todd’s murder case. The upcoming episode will air on the network on Friday, May 3, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET. A synopsis reads, “A mysterious true crime, a young mother murdered, and the stunning details of what happened next.”
NBC News stated that Tricia Todd, who was a mother, U.S. Air Force veteran, and hospice nurse, went missing in April 2016. Her ex-husband, Steven Williams, last saw her on April 26. Todd’s family eventually reported her missing after she failed to pick up her two-year-old daughter from the babysitter. Authorities and people from the community searched for the missing woman for days. They found her car, and the keys were reportedly still in the ignition. Her purse was still inside the vehicle, but her phone was missing.
Authorities questioned several potential suspects, including Todd’s ex-husband, Steven Williams, who worked for the Air Force. He later confessed to a gruesome crime, telling investigators that her death was an accident. Williams then took them to the victim’s remains and later pleaded guilty in the case. Afterward, he revealed the entire story, detailing a cruel and premeditated crime, per WPBF.
How was Tricia Todd’s murder case solved?
According to WPBF, detectives solved Tricia Todd’s murder case after getting a confession out of her ex-husband, Steven Williams. Authorities interrogated Williams after becoming suspicious of his involvement in Todd’s disappearance. They told the ex-husband about finding surveillance footage of him leaving the missing mother’s house. They alleged the suspect the footage captured him dropping off her car there. His confession came on May 25, nearly a month after he claimed he last saw Todd.
The outlet stated that Williams initially claimed Todd’s death was an accident. He claimed to have pushed the 30-year-old while arguing when she fell and died. Fearing that he would face the blame for her death, Williams claimed he first dismembered her body and disposed of the body parts. He initially told authorities he couldn’t recall the exact whereabouts where he disposed of the victim’s body.
Williams eventually agreed to lead detectives to her body in exchange for a plea deal. He took detectives to a remote location in the Hungryland Wildlife and Environmental Area. The wildlife preserve is situated along the borders of Palm Beach and Martin counties. There, after digging, they found Todd’s remains buried in a plastic tub of acid.
As part of the plea deal, Tricia Todd’s killer, Steven Williams, reportedly received a 35-year prison sentence on a second-degree murder charge. He also got a consecutive term of five years on one count of child neglect, per the Office of Special Investigations. Martin County Circuit Judge Lawrence Mirman delivered the sentence the same year he murdered Todd. Judge Marin said that the plea deal and reduced terms were “clearly less than full justice” for the victim.
Later that year, after his conviction, Steven Williams finally revealed the truth behind Todd’s murder during an interview with detectives. WPBF stated that in his final confession, the killer admitted that the murder was premeditated. Williams claimed that he committed the crime in an Airbnb, where he was staying at the time. The couple’s two-year-old daughter was also present there.
Williams confessed that he first tried to strangle Tricia Todd. His plan was to render the mother of one unconscious and then wait for her to revive. He wanted to get her to reveal her email password and other information and then send fake emails to the victim’s family to mislead them into believing that she had left for Haiti. However, his plan failed when Todd began screaming after regaining consciousness. That’s when he struck her in the head using a club before choking her to death.
Per his confession, the killer took Todd’s body to the Hungryland Wildlife Preserve. There, he had already made preparations by digging up a hole and placing a tub containing acid in it. He then used a chainsaw to dismember the victim’s body and buried the cut-up parts in the tub. Surveillance from a North Carolina Home Depot had managed to capture him as he bought acid a few months prior to the murder.
Steven Williams admitted to murdering Todd to avoid paying child support. Moreover, Williams, who resided in North Carolina, wanted full custody of their daughter and take her back with him, per The Palm Beach Post. He also felt his ex-wife “disrespected” him, and the fact that he got to see his daughter rarely upset him. Moreover, he mentioned that he and the victim had financial issues.
Detectives believed Williams’ “confession definitely was key and [they] were able to bring justice to her [Todd’s] family.”
ABC 20/20‘s “The Hungryland Homicide” airs with Tricia Todd’s murder case this Friday, May 3.
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