12-year-old got off bus and vanished 30 years ago, Florida cops say. Now man charged
Decades after a 12-year-old’s body was found under orange trees in a rural Florida county, a man has been charged with murder, the sheriff’s office announced.
On a Friday afternoon in 1993, 12-year-old Jennifer Odom got off the school bus carrying her backpack and clarinet in a rural part of Pasco County, Florida, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Her classmates watched her walk away, followed by a blue pickup truck, as she headed home, according to the outlet.
That was the last time anyone saw her alive.
After six days of searching, Jennifer’s naked body was found in an abandoned orange grove in Brooksville in neighboring Hernando County, WTSP reported.
Her death rocked the community, but no progress was made in finding her killer.
Two years later, a couple who had been scrounging for scrap metal found her backpack and clarinet case, WFLA reported.
But again, Jennifer’s case remained cold.
Now thirty years later, a man has been charged with murder, Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis announced in a July 27 news conference.
“This is a day we’ve been waiting for for a very, very long time,” Denise Moloney with the public information office said at the beginning of the conference.
Jeffrey Crum, 61, was indicted by a grand jury on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery in the Jennifer Odom case.
Crum’s name was well known in Pasco County, following his 2015 conviction in the attempted murder and rape of a high school girl in January 1992, Tampa Bay Times reported.
In that case, a 17-year-old who was enrolled in a special education program was approached by Crum as she got off the school bus and taken to an abandoned house, where she was hit on the head and sexually assaulted, the outlet reported.
Crum was sentenced in 2019 and is currently serving two life sentences in the Hernando County Detention Center.
When Crum became a suspect in the 1992 case, he “almost instantaneously became our No. 1 suspect in the Jennifer Odom case,” Nienhuis said in the news conference.
Jennifer was killed just a year later, and her case had similar details, the sheriff said.
Crum also had a long history of violence, particularly against women, according to the sheriff.
After his conviction, law enforcement now had a full DNA profile from the 1992 case to compare to evidence collected in Jennifer’s case, and soon deputies found a common suspect.
The sheriff said they believe there may be other victims and encouraged anyone with any information to come forward.
State Attorney Bill Gladson said in the news conference the prosecution will be seeking the death penalty as the case goes to trial.
Brooksville is about 50 miles north of Tampa.
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