A woman was found dead in a Florida ditch 28 years ago. Deputies just made an arrest
A 28-year-old Florida cold case has been solved.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s office, with the assistance of the Delaware State Police, charged 72-year-old Stephen L. Ford with the 1996 second-degree murder of Doris A. Korell, a 45-year-old St. Petersburg woman found dead in a ditch along U.S. 41 in Palmetto.
Ford stabbed Korell, who was his girlfriend at the time, 83 times, according to authorities.
The Delaware State Police took Ford into custody on Aug. 16 during a traffic stop near his home in Georgetown, Delaware. He was brought back to Florida and booked into the Manatee County Jail on Aug. 30, deputies say.
On Dec. 15, 1996, Manatee sheriff’s deputies saw a body floating face down in a Palmetto drainage canal. Divers retrieved the body of an unidentified woman wearing a gold ring on her right index finger. The woman had trauma to the right side of her neck and face and an autopsy revealed she had several stab wounds, according to arrest records.
The autopsy, as well as later DNA samples, found no evidence of sexual assault, detectives say.
How the Florida murder case unfolded
Detectives in Manatee County say they were unaware at the time that the St. Petersburg Police Department was looking for Korell, who was reported missing a few days earlier.
On Dec. 11, Korell’s daughter reported her missing after Ford called her to ask if she’d seen her mother. Ford told her daughter that Korell left their shared St. Petersburg duplex to go shopping after an argument, according to arrest records.
St. Petersburg police say they found Korell’s red Mazda RX-7 at the Pinellas Square Mall a week later but discovered no evidence that a struggle or attack took place inside the car. However, investigators say they believe Ford parked the car there and wiped it down.
Ford denied any involvement in Korell’s disappearance when questioned by detectives. When asked what should happen to the person who killed Korell, Ford told them, “An eye for an eye” and said, “If I killed her, I should get the death penalty,” according to the sheriff’s office.
Detectives also said they noticed Christmas gifts at Ford’s home had been opened days before the holiday “as if he expected” his girlfriend wouldn’t be found.
When detectives returned to Ford’s duplex on Christmas Eve 1996 for a follow-up interview, they said they made entry through an unlocked window when Ford didn’t answer the door and discovered him semi-conscious and foaming at the mouth after he ingested bleach in an apparent suicide attempt.
Detectives say they identified the body discovered in the Palmetto ditch as Korell’s a few months later through dental records. That’s when detectives with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office and the St. Petersburg Police Department realized they were working on the same case, however, due to a lack of physical evidence and leads in the months to follow, the investigation went cold and Ford moved to Delaware, according to a news release.
New information leads to arrest, deputies say
In 2017, a cold case detective with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office reopened the case and began reexamining files from both Manatee County and St. Petersburg police, according to a news release.
Over the next six years, the sheriff’s office said new information came to light leading to Ford’s arrest, including acquaintances of Korell’s saying she feared Ford and that the couple were having domestic and financial problems.
Cold case detectives said Ford’s behavior “showed a clear pattern of consciousness of guilty,” according to a news release.
Ford is facing a charge of second-degree murder with a weapon and is scheduled for his first court appearance on Sept. 6, according to court records.
