ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Manatee County Sheriff's Office arrested a man allegedly tied to a nearly 28-year-old cold case, the agency said in a news release.
Stephen Ford, 72, is being charged with the murder of 45-year-old Doris Korell of St. Petersburg in 1996. Ford was reportedly arrested in Georgetown, Delaware on Aug. 16 this year and is being charged with second-degree murder with a weapon.
On Dec. 15, 1996, Manatee County deputies found a woman's body floating face down in a drainage canal. According to the sheriff's office, the medical examiner at the time noticed trauma to the right side of her neck and face.
Manatee County deputies learned that St. Petersburg Police had reportedly been searching for Korell after her daughter reported her missing on Dec. 11 that year.
"She was loving, caring," her daughter, Laura Gaddy, said in an interview. "She was excited that I was pregnant with my first child. She loved the beach. She loved the sun. So she decided she lived [in Maryland] all her life. So she wanted to move on."
During an autopsy on Dec. 18, the medical examiner found that the woman had been stabbed 83 times, deputies said. Meanwhile, St. Petersburg detectives were able to find Korell's red Mazda RX-7 at the Pinellas Square Mall, which had evidence that her boyfriend, Stephen Ford, had wiped it down, according to deputies.
"He was the prime suspect," said Gaddy, adding that she credits MCSO Detective Charles Butler with advancing the case. "[Detectives] just worked through everything until they figured they had a good substantial case to go ahead and make an arrest."
As the investigation continued, St. Pete police questioned Ford's involvement in Korell's disappearance, according to Manatee deputies. Officers reportedly learned he had rented a storage unit a day after Korell went missing, relocating her jewelry, clothing and photos "because she didn't want Doris' daughter to have it."
Detectives noticed more strange behavior from Ford, noting that his duplex "smelled like decomposition" during a visit, according to the agency. He had also written a suicide note to his two sons and attempted to take his own life on Christmas Eve, 1996 by drinking bleach, deputies said.
While Ford denied any involvement in Korell's disappearance or death, he did make suspicious comments during interviews with detectives, according to the sheriff's office. During one interview, when detectives asked what should happen to the person who killed Korell, Ford replied,
"An eye for an eye. If I killed her, I should get the death penalty."
While Ford continued to raise suspicion among detectives, the woman found in the drainage canal was identified as Korell the following year through dental records, deputies said.
"However, due to a lack of physical evidence and leads in the months to follow, the investigations went cold, and Ford had moved to Delaware," deputies stated in the release.
Years went by before the Manatee County Sheriff's Office reopened the case in 2017. Over the next six years, new information from friends of Korell revealed she and Ford were having domestic and financial problems, according to deputies.
Finally, cold case detectives determined that Ford's behavior through the investigation "showed a clear pattern of consciousness of guilt" through his attempts to mislead deputies and suicide attempts. They developed probable cause to believe he murdered Korell and, with help from Delaware State Police, arrested him on Aug. 16.
Ford was extradited and booked into the Manatee County Jail on Aug. 30, according to the sheriff's office.
"I'm going to learn of new things that I don't know," Gaddy said about upcoming court proceedings. "And I'll be able to ask the questions that I have."
Questions she hopes are answered when Ford goes on trial.
"Why he did it., with the weapon that he used," she said. "The purpose of doing it and then disposing of her body."
Adding to Gaddy’s anguish all these years is that both she and Ford lived in Delaware and she felt like she always had to watch her back. she'll be in Bradenton on Friday to watch Ford make his first court appearance, where prosecutors will argue for him to remain in jail.