September 4, 2024 • 8 mins
After 28 years, Manatee County sheriff's detectives have solved a cold case murder with the arrest of the victim's former boyfriend. We speak with Randy Warren of the Manatee Sheriff's Office about the 1996 murder of Doris Korell of St. Petersburg and the arrest of Stephen Ford. (Photo courtesy Manatee County Sheriff's Office).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here Beyond the News. Sheriff's detectives in Manatee
County say they have solved a cold case that goes
back twenty eight years. They've made an arrest in the
death of a forty five year old Doris Correll of
Saint Petersburg that happened back in nineteen ninety six. We
have Randy Warren with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office to
(00:21):
talk with us about the work by detectives that brought
this case to a conclusion. Randy Warren, thank you very
much for joining us on Beyond the News.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Thank you Gordon for reaching out to us. It's been
a long time coming. Doris's family finally has some comfort
knowing that Steven l. Ford, who is now seventy two
years old and was living in Delaware, had started a
new life. He was going on walking free. He's no
longer doing that. He's in jail and he's going to
(00:53):
face the charge of the murder of Doris Corral.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And as we understand, he was identified at the time
as her boyfriend, and we're going to get some information
about that and how that's played out over the years.
I guess first is that this ended up. How did
this end up being a criminal case in Manatee County?
How did it end up being placed in the lapse
(01:18):
of your detectives?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, right now, the State Office of the Office of
Statewide Prosecution a part of the Attorney General's Office. A
lot of people may not understand that what they do
is they, okay, will prosecute cases where the jurisdiction is
maybe a little bit unclear. So we were investigating a
homicide back in December of nineteen ninety six, December fifteenth,
(01:41):
when her body was found on US forty one, just
north of Palmetto and a ditch emmy found that she
had been stabbed eighty three times she was laying there.
She was a Jane Doe for a long time. And
back then, you know, our detectives were doing what they
could to see who may have been gone missing. There
(02:01):
had been no reports of anything that they knew of
of someone fitting this description. And then through dental records
we found out who she was. In the Saint Petersburg
Police Department had been investigating this missing person. We still
don't know, and we may never know unless our suspect
fesses up and tells us exactly what happened and how
(02:23):
she died and where she died. We don't know if
she was killed in Saint Petersburg, Padallas County, or whether
she was killed in Manatee County, only that we know
that's where her body was found.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And as you mentioned, there were these two parallel investigations,
your death investigation and their missing person investigation. And I
believe at that time the police detectives in Saint Petersburg
we're talking to Stephen Ford, and what were they able
to find out at that time through their investigation.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
There were a lot of things that didn't add up,
and he had a kind of interesting behavior about him.
He did not report her missing. He never did. He
reached out to Doris's daughter to ask have you heard
from your mom? Which that phone call seemed even a
little odd for for her, and she was thinking something
(03:16):
was up. She may have had her own suspicions about
him and their relationship. We learn later through some friends
and even people that have been interviewed just in the
last few years who said Doris was not in a
good relationship with Stephen L. Ford. They they shared an
apartment there in Saint Petersburg. Things that were uncharacteristic that
(03:38):
that would appear she would just you know, go off
on her car. The way that he claimed that she
did things that raised a lot of suspicion, and he
was a suspect very much early on. He attempted to
kill himself twice. There was DNA that was a later
found to not be Doris's because the investor negation in
(04:00):
Saint Pete had focused on that DNA being hers, that
maybe she had been killed in the apartment. Turns out
that DNA was his, and we learned that he had
tried to commit suicide a second time by ingesting bleach
and that was some of his bodily fluids that were
left on this bed. He never was cooperative and there
(04:22):
were a lot of things there, like taking her opening
her Christmas gifts even though he was claiming I hope
she makes it back in time for Christmas. He took
her belongings just days after she went missing and put
it in a storage unit, and then claiming that he
didn't want her family to have her belongings. Things that
certainly raise red flags for investigators, but are looking for
(04:46):
a way to really close out the case, and unfortunately,
back then it just didn't happen. We were dealing with
this jurisdictional thing. Their files are files, and you know,
unfortunately moved away. Nothing new was coming to light in
terms of some statements or any kind of physical evidence.
(05:07):
And so what we're trying to do is law enforcement
agencies across the state. We're not giving up on our
cases that are classified as being cold cases. And we
have a detective who went and dug into this in
nineteen I'm sorry, twenty seventeen for all of those files
that had been put together in nineteen ninety six and
(05:28):
ninety seven and started comparing the files from Saint Pete
and then our files, looking at all the documentation, and
through the process building the case that we have today,
and with the work of the prosecutors here, feeling confident
that we have a good case to be able to
take the trial.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And you were able with that DNA evidence to corroborate
information about a suicide attempt by Ford, and basically your
development of probable cause was built also around his behavior
at the time and that it seemed consistent with somebody
basically trying to cover up a crime. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
It is it was Ford's deliberate actions, the misstatements to
law enforcement, his attempts to commit suicide. We believe that
that really provides kind of in its totality, if you
take all of that, just putting it together, probable cause
to charge him with this. It's a case really built
(06:32):
upon consciousness of guilt.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
This obviously is a step forward for the family of
the victim, and I suspect that the detectives are also
feeling a sense of moving forward now that they've been
able to develop enough evidence to bring charges. Where does
it go from.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Here, Well, it didn't happen overnight. You're absolutely right, Gordon.
This one dates, you know, a couple of decades and
then just the last six years that we have been
putting things together and working with the Attorney General's Office,
the Office of State Wide Prosecution to really dot every cross,
every t in this case the best that we can.
(07:18):
This will now be prosecuted by those prosecutors because of
that jurisdictional concern here, and hopefully they'll be able to
get this on a docket and bring him to trial
and a lot of information will come out in that trial.
And as in any case where you put the legwork
(07:38):
in there, because you're doing this for the victim. You're
doing this for their family. They deserved to see justice served.
A long time ago, he went on to live a
different life. He was going about life like maybe any
normal seventy two year old man living states away would do.
(08:00):
Was he looking over his shoulder? Did he always think
they may be watching. One day, they're gonna just come
up and stop me and then take me back to Florida.
Maybe or maybe he didn't, But we wanted to just
see justice served and move forward and get this case prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
We'll continue to follow developments as it moves through now
the court system. Randy Warren with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office,
thank you very much for joining us on beyond the
News
Gordon Bird here Beyond the News. Sheriff's detectives in Manatee
County say they have solved a cold case that goes
back twenty eight years. They've made an arrest in the
death of a forty five year old Doris Correll of
Saint Petersburg that happened back in nineteen ninety six. We
have Randy Warren with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office to
(00:21):
talk with us about the work by detectives that brought
this case to a conclusion. Randy Warren, thank you very
much for joining us on Beyond the News.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Thank you Gordon for reaching out to us. It's been
a long time coming. Doris's family finally has some comfort
knowing that Steven l. Ford, who is now seventy two
years old and was living in Delaware, had started a
new life. He was going on walking free. He's no
longer doing that. He's in jail and he's going to
(00:53):
face the charge of the murder of Doris Corral.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
And as we understand, he was identified at the time
as her boyfriend, and we're going to get some information
about that and how that's played out over the years.
I guess first is that this ended up. How did
this end up being a criminal case in Manatee County?
How did it end up being placed in the lapse
(01:18):
of your detectives?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well, right now, the State Office of the Office of
Statewide Prosecution a part of the Attorney General's Office. A
lot of people may not understand that what they do
is they, okay, will prosecute cases where the jurisdiction is
maybe a little bit unclear. So we were investigating a
homicide back in December of nineteen ninety six, December fifteenth,
(01:41):
when her body was found on US forty one, just
north of Palmetto and a ditch emmy found that she
had been stabbed eighty three times she was laying there.
She was a Jane Doe for a long time. And
back then, you know, our detectives were doing what they
could to see who may have been gone missing. There
(02:01):
had been no reports of anything that they knew of
of someone fitting this description. And then through dental records
we found out who she was. In the Saint Petersburg
Police Department had been investigating this missing person. We still
don't know, and we may never know unless our suspect
fesses up and tells us exactly what happened and how
(02:23):
she died and where she died. We don't know if
she was killed in Saint Petersburg, Padallas County, or whether
she was killed in Manatee County, only that we know
that's where her body was found.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And as you mentioned, there were these two parallel investigations,
your death investigation and their missing person investigation. And I
believe at that time the police detectives in Saint Petersburg
we're talking to Stephen Ford, and what were they able
to find out at that time through their investigation.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
There were a lot of things that didn't add up,
and he had a kind of interesting behavior about him.
He did not report her missing. He never did. He
reached out to Doris's daughter to ask have you heard
from your mom? Which that phone call seemed even a
little odd for for her, and she was thinking something
(03:16):
was up. She may have had her own suspicions about
him and their relationship. We learn later through some friends
and even people that have been interviewed just in the
last few years who said Doris was not in a
good relationship with Stephen L. Ford. They they shared an
apartment there in Saint Petersburg. Things that were uncharacteristic that
(03:38):
that would appear she would just you know, go off
on her car. The way that he claimed that she
did things that raised a lot of suspicion, and he
was a suspect very much early on. He attempted to
kill himself twice. There was DNA that was a later
found to not be Doris's because the investor negation in
(04:00):
Saint Pete had focused on that DNA being hers, that
maybe she had been killed in the apartment. Turns out
that DNA was his, and we learned that he had
tried to commit suicide a second time by ingesting bleach
and that was some of his bodily fluids that were
left on this bed. He never was cooperative and there
(04:22):
were a lot of things there, like taking her opening
her Christmas gifts even though he was claiming I hope
she makes it back in time for Christmas. He took
her belongings just days after she went missing and put
it in a storage unit, and then claiming that he
didn't want her family to have her belongings. Things that
certainly raise red flags for investigators, but are looking for
(04:46):
a way to really close out the case, and unfortunately,
back then it just didn't happen. We were dealing with
this jurisdictional thing. Their files are files, and you know,
unfortunately moved away. Nothing new was coming to light in
terms of some statements or any kind of physical evidence.
(05:07):
And so what we're trying to do is law enforcement
agencies across the state. We're not giving up on our
cases that are classified as being cold cases. And we
have a detective who went and dug into this in
nineteen I'm sorry, twenty seventeen for all of those files
that had been put together in nineteen ninety six and
(05:28):
ninety seven and started comparing the files from Saint Pete
and then our files, looking at all the documentation, and
through the process building the case that we have today,
and with the work of the prosecutors here, feeling confident
that we have a good case to be able to
take the trial.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And you were able with that DNA evidence to corroborate
information about a suicide attempt by Ford, and basically your
development of probable cause was built also around his behavior
at the time and that it seemed consistent with somebody
basically trying to cover up a crime. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
It is it was Ford's deliberate actions, the misstatements to
law enforcement, his attempts to commit suicide. We believe that
that really provides kind of in its totality, if you
take all of that, just putting it together, probable cause
to charge him with this. It's a case really built
(06:32):
upon consciousness of guilt.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
This obviously is a step forward for the family of
the victim, and I suspect that the detectives are also
feeling a sense of moving forward now that they've been
able to develop enough evidence to bring charges. Where does
it go from.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Here, Well, it didn't happen overnight. You're absolutely right, Gordon.
This one dates, you know, a couple of decades and
then just the last six years that we have been
putting things together and working with the Attorney General's Office,
the Office of State Wide Prosecution to really dot every cross,
every t in this case the best that we can.
(07:18):
This will now be prosecuted by those prosecutors because of
that jurisdictional concern here, and hopefully they'll be able to
get this on a docket and bring him to trial
and a lot of information will come out in that trial.
And as in any case where you put the legwork
(07:38):
in there, because you're doing this for the victim. You're
doing this for their family. They deserved to see justice served.
A long time ago, he went on to live a
different life. He was going about life like maybe any
normal seventy two year old man living states away would do.
(08:00):
Was he looking over his shoulder? Did he always think
they may be watching. One day, they're gonna just come
up and stop me and then take me back to Florida.
Maybe or maybe he didn't, But we wanted to just
see justice served and move forward and get this case prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
We'll continue to follow developments as it moves through now
the court system. Randy Warren with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office,
thank you very much for joining us on beyond the
News
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