Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 189

Stpctcrsburg QTimcs Weather Cloudy, chance of rain. Highs in mid to upper 70s. Details, 2B pas FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1993 PASCO EDITION St. Petersburg, Fla. OFFBEAT JAN GLIDEWELL (9J FZ7 P5 We clung to hope, but it was too late body Jennifer Renee Odom disappeared after getting off her school bus Friday.

A wait until body can be identified I By WES PLATT Time Staff Writer mm munt Ul. -W- I 7r run i in ii i ii 1 ili il in Ti in i-'-j-it i Tlmes photo ROBERT ROGERS Cars jam Powell Road in Hernando County on Thursday after the weeklong search for Jennifer Odom ended on a nearby dirt road. Searchers found the body at 11 a.m. Community 'family' takes it very hard 7 SPRING LAKE It was here, on a horse trail near Powell Road bordered by orange and pine groves, that Jennifer Odom's life may have ended. And it was here on Thursday that the search for her killer began.

The body was found by a Hernando county couple about 11 a.m. By noon, investigators from Pasco and Hernando counties, as well as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state attorney's offices of both counties were on the scene. A dozen reporters and cameramen, three or four bystanders and two psychics gathered nearby. Throughout most of the afternoon, before the body was identified, Hernando County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Frank Bierwiler insisted Pasco authorities were interested only because of the proximity to the county line.

Sunlight glared off windshields of dozens of cars parked on either side of Powell Road. Deputies filled notepads with the tag numbers of each passing car and truck. A sheriff's helicopter circled overhead. Police corraled reporters on the north side of Powell Road to await word. At 5:30, it came.

Pasco Sheriff Lee Cannon and Hernando Sheriff Thomas Mylan-der announced what had been suspected for hours: The body seemed to be that of Jennifer Odom. They offered no other detail. Rebecca Mitchell lives about a mile from where the body was found. She said she and her family had driven their green jeep along Powell Road the past few days, hoping to find some clue to Jennifer's whereabouts. She said she and her husband Please see DEATH Page 8 By LARRY DOUGHERTY, SALLY HICKS and NANCY WEIL Tlm Staff Wrlter mi When Clark Converse walked out of our office Thursday afternoon there was hope.

A few minutes later there was none. Converse was looking for copies of the paper with pictures of his family pleading for the safe return of his stepdaughter so he could send them to relatives, and another copy to save for Jennifer so she could see how many people had cared about her and worked for her safety. Converse, red-eyed and somber, said he might be looking for media help if the family decided to offer a reward. "The police and the FBI have advised us against it because it would encourage people who were motivated by the money to call and bring a lot of kooks out of the woodwork," he said. There was nothing to say except that we stood ready to help any way we could.

Reporters aren't supposed to get personally involved in most stories, but the welfare and safety of children is really not an adversarial issue. I had watched my boss, Bill Stevens, sit moist-eyed as he spoke and wrote about his visit to the Converse household. Stevens has a 10-year-old daughter named Jennifer. I have a 9-year-old granddaughter. Another reporter working on the story is expecting her first child in a few months.

Sometimes you forget your role of objective chronicler of events. Sometimes you remember that you are a human being and that these are your neighbors and friends in trouble. We wished Clark Converse well and turned back to the tasks at hand. Within 15 minutes, educators and parents were calling and inquiring if we had heard rumors that Jennifer's body had been found. A colleague returning from the Dade City post office had observed that workers there were quietly taking down copies of the posters that had flooded Dade City during the five days since her disappearance.

Rumors about Jennifer's body being found flamed through some East Pasco schools like brush fires. Scared kids didn't want to get on school buses. Scared parents didn't know whether to meet their kids at school or at the bus stops. Don't jump, we cautioned each other, to conclusions. Rumors had been rampant for five days.

A white man grabbed her, a black man grabbed her, she ran away, they found signs of a struggle, they didn't find signs of a struggle. No piece of misinformation was too bizarre to be discarded, each was placed (or forced) into the puzzle of alternative possibilities. Maybe the body wasn't hers. But a few minutes later I heard a reporter on the phone say, "Oh no," in an unmistakable tone. I looked up and saw her, her face twisted in pain, writing down information that there had been an unofficial confirmation of the identification.

We seized on the unofficial nature of the identification. Sometimes people in a position to know things speak too soon or too assuredly. Sometimes their information is second hand. Maybe it wasn't true. Maybe speculation had been mistaken for fact.

For once we sat as a room full of seekers of truth, and hoped we had been lied to. And swore silently when we found out we had not. Somebody asked me earlier in the week if I thought there was a connection between Jennifer's disappearance and that of Elana Goldstein, the 14-year-old Quail Hollow girl who died after being shot twice as she walked home from her rural school bus stop in south-central Pasco in 1981. Her killer has still not been arrested and I have written about the case at least once a year since then. I hadn't wanted to think about it and, till lo 'J IN "Anger, relief recognizing we had a very bad situation, wanting to know where she was," Sample said.

"While this closes one chapter, knowing she is where she is, we are going to do all we can in cooperation with Hernando County, the FBI and the FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement), who have worked with us so well." Thirteen-year-old Jessica Floyd, a friend of Jennifer's for four years, said she planned to go to the counseling sessions offered for students at Weightman Middle School. She and Jennifer were in the same grade and rode the same bus. Jessica said she called Michelle Sample when she heard the rumor that the body found Thursday was Jennifer's. "I said, 'Do you think it's She said, 'No, I'm sure it's not Jessica said. "That's the same thing I was doing.

No, it can't be Jenny. There's no way. "But it is," Jessica said. The Shell gas station and food mart stands at the blinking traffic signal in the crossroads of San Antonio, a few miles from Jennifer's house. On Thursday evening, customers exchanged the sad news with clerk Richard Austin, who stood behind the lami- Please see FAMILY Page 8 Jennifer Odom came from the sort of place that is vanishing rapidly these days a community where everyone seems to know everyone, if not by name, then by nod or wave.

For the people who police the roads, teach the children and visit the convenience store, the reaction to the discovery of Jennifer's body on Thursday was personal. As the trusted assistant to Pasco County Sheriff Lee Cannon, Harold Sample played an important part in the search for Jennifer Odom. But his stake went beyond his professional pride. Jennifer was best friends with Sample's 13-year-old daughter, Michelle. Jennifer had slept over at the Sample household.

Jennifer and Michelle both were seventh-graders at Thomas E. Weight-man Middle School. And they played clarinet together in the school band. The girls had been planning to participate together in a music competition on Saturday, the day after Jennifer disappeared. Harold Sample said his daughter was taking the news about Jennifer "very hard." Sample said he felt a variety of emotions himself.

Timet photo ROBERT ROGERS Pasco Sheriff Lee Cannon, left, and Hernando Sheriff Tom Mylander speak to reporters Thursday. Principal appeals to parents Timet Staff Writer children, and adults at the school, cope. "School is going to be one of the best places for us all to heal by hugging and talking and crying," she said. "We're going to have people here who are trained to deal with that." A crisis team will be at the school, as will a few area ministers in case there are schoolchildren who ask to talk to a minister rather than a crisis-team member. Thomas E.

Weightman Middle School principal Katherine Piersall urges parents to send their children to school today. It's important, she says, that children follow some semblance of their daily routine. Weightman Middle will be filled with children and adults going through the same grieving process. The school is prepared to help County may take over utility TIMES DIGEST Customers of Mad Hatter have begun a petition drive that asks Pasco to condemn the utility. By ROBERT KEEFE Time Staff Writer Electronic repairman charged LAND O'LAKES An electronics repairman was charged Wednesday with defrauding a customer and trying to sell a television he didn't own.

According to a sheriff's report, John Conrad Tufts III, owner of Electronics at 4710 Land O'Lakes got a 50-inch Mitsubishi television for repair in May 1992 and tried to sell it to another customer. In addition, the second customer had taken a stereo tuneramplifier to Tufts for repair in June 1992, and Tufts charged the man $128.20 to replace 12 parts. It was later discovered that none of the 12 parts had been replaced. Tufts, 37, of Reeser Lane in Land O'Lakes, was released from jail Wednesday after posting $2,000 bail. Ridge wood High beats Central Coverage of the Class 3A, District 9 boys basketball tournament: Ridgewood wins, Page more coverage, Section Correction The 10th annual St.

Anthony's Triathlon begins at 7:30 a.m. April 25. An incorrect date was printed in the February issue of Seniority. county administrator for utilities. "We have taken over some systems that were abandoned but this isn't like that," Bramlett said.

The president of Mad Hatter, Larry DeLucenay, said he would be willing to sell the system to the county or to his customers, but had no intention of voluntarily turning the system over. "What they (Land O'Lakes residents) think they are doing is putting me out of business," DeLucenay said. "But it will cost the county to purchase us. They'll have to pay fair value for the system." DeLucenay estimated his company's sewer system in Land O'Lakes is worth Bramlett himself a Mad Hatter customer said it would cost relatively little to connect the Mad Hatter system to the county sewer and water system, especially because the county already treats all of the wastewater collected by the company. But the 1,700 or so Mad Hatter customers would probably have to pay impact fees an estimated $600 each if the county buys or takes Please see UTILITY Page 1 1 LAND O'LAKES Five months ago, scores of Mad Flatter Utility customers unsuccessfully petitioned the state to shut down the water and sewer company because of what they consider poor service and high rates.

Now they plan to ask the county to take over the water and sewer company and begin providing their service. "We've started a petition drive and now have over 1,000 signatures," said Gayle Ostovich, one of the organizers of the petition drive. "We are going to request that the county condemn the utility, take it over and start providing us with service." If the county were to take over the system because of consumer complaints, it would be an unprecedented move, said Doug Bramlett, assistant while they still had a thread of hope to cling to, I didn't want Jennifer Odom's family to think about it either. It is too soon to know if these and other unsolved murders of children and young adults here have any legally pertinent connection. But, yes, they are all connected.

They were all somebody's sons and daughters. And they are all gone..