Featured Image Credit: GoFundMe
Topics: News, US News, Crime, True crime, Florida
Gerrard Kaonga
A husband made a heartbreaking discovery after sending a message to his wife that sparked cause for concern.
A Florida man was left distraught after realizing that his wife had died in a shocking attack.
Gerald Strader had explained to local media that he had regularly kept in contact with his wife through texts, while she worked as a housekeeping manager at the Rodeway Inn in Venice, Florida.
This protocol was in hopes of keeping her safe while she cleaned people’s rooms at the hotel she had worked at since 2019.
Advert
However, one day back in 2021, her lack of response sparked concern.
Strader said: “She texts me when she starts the room so I will know. Normally if it is a really bad room, she would say ‘it’ll just take me longer or can you get this for me.”
As well as this, the doors are normally left open when a cleaner is working on a room.
However, he came to the room and found the door closed and entered to make a shocking discovery.
His wife had been beaten, left for dead and stashed in the room’s closet with a towel stuffed in her mouth.
Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman highlighted just how gruesome of a discovery this would be for any spouse, empathizing with the husband and saying he can’t imagine what it must have been like to live through a spouse's worst nightmare.
She was a mother of four and grandmother of two.
During a following press conference, he said: “No homicide scene is pleasant, but certainly when a spouse is the one that finds you and has to take the CPR instructions from dispatch, I can’t imagine how difficult that was for him."
The 30-year-old man charged with her death had been staying at the hotel for about six days, and authorities confirmed that the two did not know one another.
Police believe the man, identified as Stephen Havrilka, had followed Tina into the room minutes after she had entered the room to clean it.
Speaking about the culprit, Hoffman said: “I can only imagine that he may have spent his days perhaps observing her at the Rodeway Inn.”
He also stated that Havrilka had ‘neo nazi alliances’.
Havrilka was charged with second-degree murder. Police stated that he had a lengthy criminal history, this included 34 prior felony charges, 19 felony convictions, 16 misdemeanor charges, 10 misdemeanor convictions, and four stints in prison.
Havrilka, has now pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge and was sentenced to life in prison, according to documents filed February 2025.