Following the Friday night football game at Mariner High School on the Halloween night of 2008, Anna Treadwell and Tiffany Ellis, both juniors, convinced their boyfriends to meet them at midnight on the world-famous Matlacha Bridge, to go fishing. The girls agreed to tell their parents they would be spending the night at Tiffany’s house, located just a short distance from the bridge. Both girls were popular members of the cheerleading team and their boyfriends, Bob Sutherland and John Livesay, were starters on the football team. Like many students at Mariner, the young men were avid fisherman and sportsman. The boys eagerly anticipated the late night meeting.
Tiffany’s parents, Ralph and Mary Ellis were both professional people and tended to retire before 11 p.m., even on a Friday night. Anna arrived at the Ellis’ house around 10:45 p.m. She began walking up the flight of 13 steps necessary to meet the hurricane flood zone codes for the recently built house. Because of the height of the stairs, the steps were made of wood which echoed footsteps with a thud each time Anna took a step. It didn’t need to be Halloween to scare Anna, who hurried up the stairs to the front door with an unusually cold breeze chilling her back. Just as she started to press the doorbell, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis opened the door and brushed past the startled young visitor. “You girls be careful tonight. We have to drive up to Orlando. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
Inside the living room, Anna found Tiffany sitting on the couch, pulling on a pair of her usual skin tight jeans. Laughing, Tiffany exclaimed, “Isn’t this the best! I don’t know who called my parents. They seemed upset, but now we have the house to ourselves and can have the guys stay over with us. This is going to be a great night.”
“I don’t know, “Anna protested, “I mean, I do like John and he really is cute. But, the thought of spending all night alone with a boy scares me a little.”
“C’mon silly,” Tiffany with a big smile showing her perfect white teeth, “I got all sweaty cheering during the game. I’m sure you did too. Why don’t you get a bath and put on your pajamas. I’ll walk over to the bridge and bring the boys back here to the house.”
Anna quickly went upstairs and enjoyed the soaking tub in Tiffany’s parent’s master bedroom. It was so warm and relaxing that she drifted into a slumber. She was startled awake by a noise outside. It clearly sounded like a woman’s scream from behind the Ellis home, which sat at the water’s edge of Pine Island Sound.
Wrapping herself in Mrs. Ellis’ terry cloth bathrobe from behind the door, Anna cautiously and slowly descended the stairs. Going down into the living room she again heard another noise outside this time in the front of the house. Assuming and praying to herself it was Tiffany and the boys coming closer, Anna rushed to the front door, and clicked on the porch light.
But the porch light didn’t light and for no explainable reason, all the lights throughout the house dimmed and went black.
Anna was now in the pitch darkness and very afraid. Suddenly she heard a thud. It would be the first of twelve more as Anna deduced someone was coming up the front steps. Anna hoped so very much it was Tiffany and the boys. Anna had never liked being alone!
“Thud.” The sound startled her and she shouted, “Tiffany, is that you?”
“Thud.” The noise drew her to the window where she peered out through the horizontal blinds.
“Thud.” It was so dark, with a nearly new moon, but Anna still could not make out the figure coming up the stairs.
“Thud.” Squinting Anna could see an emerging outline on sixth stair from the ground.
“Thud.” Anna could not see the two human shapes of the boys or a third figure she hoped was Tiffany’s.
“Thud.” Anna crept back to the closed front doors and locked them tight.
“Thud.” The now terrified girl sneaked back to the window, now visibly shaking, peeking back out the window into the darkness.
“Thud.” Anna was now scared beyond anything she had ever felt before in her entire 16 years.
“Thud.” “Tiffany, this isn’t a damn bit funny. If you don’t answer me, I’m calling the Sheriff. Tiffany, please talk to me!”
“Thud.” Anna crossed the room, stubbing her big toe on an end table and yelping in pain. But somehow she did manage to grab her cell phone from her bag on the table. Now crying as well as shaking, she dialed 911.
“Thud.” Anna was both hysterical and moaning loudly into the phone. The operator tried to calm her down, but, had no success with the sobbing teenager.
“Thud.” The two locked French front doors blew open from a sudden wind gust or?
Anna screamed. As she looked desperately through the darkness and her tears at what appeared to be a young woman’s outline, Anna slowly moved toward the open doors. She assumed it must be Tiffany, and hope beyond hope; she walked up to the girl at the door.
“Tiffany, is that you? Please say something,” Anna pleaded. “I thought you were wearing jeans. When did you change to a skirt?”
From the apparition at the door…silence….
Anna reached out and held her friend’s hands startled how cold they felt, “Tiffany, you must come inside. You are going to catch a cold.”
Then she tried to look into Tiffany’s face; but Anna could see only blackness.
With no response, Anna ran her hands up the arms of the girl at the door. Nothing…
At last Anna reached out to touch Tiffany’s face. As she grasped for her collarbones and shoulders and reached toward the face, Anna could feel nothing no flesh until she realized that the body before her had no head!!!!
The light inside the emergency room of Cape Coral Hospital was so bright it hurt her eyes. As she awoke, Anna squinted and then looked around the room. People surrounded her. Panning the room, Anna could see nurses in colorful blue tops with cute flowers. When she saw her mom and dad she began to cry.
Anna had no idea of how she got to the hospital, or for an instant why she was even there. She shuddered and grew quite cold, remembering the doorway at Tiffany’s house. Anna began to cry uncontrollably and one of the nurses shouted for a doctor.
An attractive young doctor grabbed both her cheeks in his hands and spoke to her. Through her tears she could see his handsome face. She smiled and finally spoke to her mother, “Wait until Tiffany finds out that a real hunk doctor is holding my head!”
At that moment, a deputy Sheriff asked her from the other side of the bed, what had happened to her the night before? Deathly serious, and holding a portable tape recorder near her mouth, Anna began to speak…….as those in the room listened in disbelief!
Back at the Ellis house in Matlacha, crime scene investigators from both the Lee County Sheriff’s Department and the Florida FDLE based out of Fort Myers combed a most unusual crime scene. The heads of both agencies were standing under a 10 x 10 sun shelter comparing findings, when the Sheriff drove up.
“What do you have?” the Sheriff asked, with perspiration already beading on his brow.
“Sir, as unbelievable as it may sound, we found a young female’s head, with long blonde hair, lying next to the sea wall east of the house.” George Pappas, a grizzled crime scene veteran, scratched his head in wonder, and continued, “There was no body at that scene, but lying near the entrance to the house, we found a decapitated female in probably in her late teens or early twenties.”
“So, do we have one or two victims?” The sheriff asked angrily.
“Well, let me say this,” George quietly answered and then went on to explain. “The blonde looks to be 15, maybe 16, and is definitely Caucasian. However; the body on the porch was of a Hispanic woman in her late teens to early twenties.”
“So we have two female victims?” The Sheriff reaching out and grabbing the CSI’s arm, “Two women murdered?”
“Maybe, but it is my opinion that the woman’s body on the porch was not murdered last night,” George went on. “From the fact that she had no recent wounds and no blood spatter, I think she may have been killed as much as two or three years ago.”
“How can that be?” The sheriff asked again.
“The head and the other body have been moved to Fort Myers for autopsy,” George answered. “We’ll know more answers this afternoon.”
The Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed George’s suspicions. The head belonged to 16 year old Tiffany Ellis and cause of death was decapitation.
The headless torso belonged to a missing 19 year old Tampa woman who had disappeared from South Beach at Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island in 2005. She was in Boca Grande for the weekend with her fiancé who had two weeks leave from the Iraq War. She went out walking their dog on the beach while her fiancé showered. She was never seen or heard from again. This gorgeous young Hispanic woman was named Louise Diaz-Garcia. Officially, her cause of death could not be determined.
A phone call from a long retired Sheriff of Charlotte County shook the Lee County Sheriff even more. They agreed to meet at 2 p.m. that Saturday afternoon outside the historic Gasparilla Inn on Boca Grande.
When the sheriff and his chief detective arrived that afternoon, they were surprised to find not only the old Charlotte County Sheriff; but the current Hillsborough County Sheriff as well.
Before anyone could speak, they were drawn to the front door of the Gasparilla Inn. An old man with a hunched back, thin gray hair and beard, and leaning on an aluminum walker, came out onto the front porch and beckoned them to join him.
As the Lee County Sheriff began to protest, the others suggested he close his mouth and listen to what the old fellow was going to tell them.
“Gentlemen, it seems our long standing problem has occurred once again,” the salty looking character smiled at the group. About every couple years we have to deal with the same thing.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” the Lee County Sheriff nearly yelled in the man’s wrinkled face.
The old man smiled and looked squarely into the eyes of the young sheriff and then spoke, “Well, a little over 200 years ago, Jose Gaspar, known as Gasparilla, had a pirate kingdom based on this island, and …..”
“Wait a minute, everyone knows that is simply a Florida legend,” the Lee Sheriff laughed.
“Unless you have a simple explanation of how, every two or three years, a teenaged girl’s head is found without her body and another older headless body is left at the same place, stay quiet and listen to me. You young people today have a hard time accepting anything that isn’t a hard and fast fact, thanks to the damned Internet,” the old man replied.
“Anyway as I was saying, back in 1804, Jose Gaspar was the leader of a pirate democracy in Southwest Florida. He was 47 years old and quite the ladies man. Well, it seems that one of his ships The Three Sisters attacked a French ship going back to Europe with a number of young Spanish and French princesses on board. The merchant ship was the LaBelle and it was taking the women back from New Orleans to Spain and then France. Jose at that time was a shrewd businessman who made great sums of money from every kind of endeavor. Up until this point in his life, he treated captives such as the young princesses very well. In fact, they were often kept on Captiva Island and protected until such time as each had their ransoms paid. However; one of the captives on this ship was Princess Maria Louisa of Madrid. She was sixteen years old, beautiful, and more strong willed than even the tough old pirate Gasparilla. Let me tell you, my father often told me the story of how taken Gasparilla was of this beautiful young girl. Recognizing her strength, Maria Louisa tormented and teased Jose for at least three or four months and he continued to pursue her as an infatuated school boy. She lived in his palace instead of on Captiva and; she bedeviled Jose constantly. One night as they walked on South Beach at the far end of this island, Jose could not control himself any longer and made advances on Maria. As he attempted to embrace her, she pulled away violently and yelled at him. Jose, a cold killer of many a man, drew his sword and threatened the young Maria Louisa. She angrily shouted at the pirate king, “You can’t make love to me” and spat at him. Enraged at such disrespect the sword flashed in the moonlight and came down on the young woman whose last words were, “for you are my father.” At that instant, the sword lifted the beautiful girl’s head from her body and it flew off into the dark waters of the Gulf of Mexico. From that point on, Jose became morose and for the next fifteen years, ran his pirate kingdom with little enthusiasm. Jose buried her headless body on either Useppa Island or Josephine Key, no one really knows.”
“That sounds like bull….!” the Sheriff exploded, and then asked, “Who is this old man?”
“I once was like you,” the Charlotte County retired sheriff smiled and added, “This ‘old man’ is Juan Gomez’s youngest son, even though he is close to 100 years old. He learned this from his father, one of the most famous pirates in these parts.”
“Okay, okay, but what’s this got to do with our murder investigation on Matlacha?” The Lee County sheriff calmed down and asked.
“Well, young man,” the old man continued, “after this horrific death of Maria Louisa it is believed that her head and spirit wanders Southwest Florida until it obtains a young teenaged woman’s body, attaches itself and uses this body for two or three years before it again searches for and obtains another teenaged body of about the same age. It is believed that she remains young throughout all time, refusing in her stubborn way, to age as a protest to her pirate father’s hateful attempt to kill her spirit.”
“The ultimate fountain of youth,” the middle aged Hillsborough Sheriff laughed.
“Well, what do we do?” the Lee County sheriff asked.
“For the past two hundred years, politicians and lawmen have simply declared the young woman whose body is taken as a ‘missing person’ and the body that is discarded is recorded as an missing person whose body is recovered and died of unknown causes,” the Charlotte County retired sheriff said evenly, “it allows us to resolve the crime without the questions that might come were the real truth ever discussed.”
“You are right,” the Sheriff shrugged, “heaven knows, sheriffs from Lee County don’t seem to do well on the national stage.
At a press conference on Monday, November 3rd, the sheriff reported to the media that a Mariner High School cheerleader was officially missing and might have been harmed in a marine related incident on Pine Island Sound. He further indicated that a young Hispanic female, believed to be Louise Diaz-Garcia from Tampa, Florida, had been discovered in Lee County and returned to Hillsborough County. Cause of death was indeterminate.
“Thud.” Now that you know and have heard the truth, what do you think will happen when Maria Louisa needs another healthy teenaged body? Will it happen in your neighborhood?
James F. & Sarah Jane Kaserman, authors and lecturers. Check out our
website at http://www.sarahjameskaserman.com for our appearance
schedule and additional new books or classes. With our latest adult
novel, TALES FROM CHRISTMAS TRAINS 1830-2030, ISBN 978-1-4392-0196-1, and
our children's book, HOW THE PIRATES SAVED CHRISTMAS, ISBN 0-9674081-2-1,
we offer the PERFECT PAIR of Christmas gifts!