Naman Shrestha
ABC’s ’20/20: The Hungryland Homicide’ delves deep into the mysterious disappearance and killing of a single mother of one named Tricia Todd in Hobe Sound, Florida, in the spring of 2016. As the detectives dug deeper into the case, they looked into multiple suspects, including a local performer and a pastor, before receiving a chilling confession from the perpetrator. The documentary provides a detailed account of the entire case and the investigation that ensued, through exclusive and insightful interviews with Tricia’s loved ones and the officials who worked hard to solve it.
Tricia Todd Was Found About a Month After She Went Missing
Patricia Gayle “Tricia” Todd Williams entered the lives of David Joseph Todd and Rebecca Jane Todd on February 19, 1986, in Stuart, Florida, as a little bundle of joy. Growing up in Hobe Sound, Florida, she was the only daughter amongst her seven brothers — Jonathan Todd, Joshua Todd, Nathan Todd, Micah Todd, Joseph Todd, Wesley Todd, and Kendall Todd. While attending Hobe Sound Christian Academy, she crossed paths with Steven Lemard Williams of West Palm Beach. After graduating from Southfork High School in 2004, her relationship with Steven became serious, and they began planning their future together. They both enrolled in the US Air Force, and she was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait.
After completing her service for the Air Force, Tricia attended Central Carolina Tech College, where she graduated in 2011 with a nursing degree. Later, she began working as a nurse for Treasure Coast Hospice. By then, she and Steven had made their relationship official in an intimate ceremony in North Carolina. Soon after their marriage, Tricia gave birth to their daughter, Faith. However, by 2015, the couple had separated as their marriage deteriorated. Following the separation, she moved back to Hobe Sound with her daughter and lived with one of her brothers. In 2016, the divorce was officially finalized. Meanwhile, Steven continued to pay child support and frequently visited Faith.
On April 27, 2016, Faith’s babysitter, Denise Toffanello, called Tricia’s brother, Jonathan, to inform him that she didn’t pick up her daughter. The brother picked up Faith himself and reported the single mother missing. As the authorities searched for the missing 30-year-old woman, they found her car near her brother Joshua’s home. Inside the car, they noticed that her wallet and cell phone were missing from her purse. Nearly a month later, on May 26, 2016, Tricia’s partial remains were found inside a plastic barrel buried about three feet into the ground in the Hungryland Wildlife and Environmental Area. The container held some type of acid, which caused the remains to decompose faster.
Multiple Suspects Emerged During Tricia Todd’s Murder Investigation
While searching for Tricia Todd, the authorities interviewed her ex-husband, Steven Williams, who was considered a person of interest. During the interview, he was cooperative with them and answered all their questions. He claimed that Faith was with him at his rental house the night before Tricia went missing. According to him, the 2-year-old had trouble sleeping, after which he called Tricia for help. He told the officers that after putting Faith to sleep, she returned home around 2 am. Steven further claimed that Tricia didn’t show up to pick their daughter up the following morning, so he left her with the babysitter and headed back to North Carolina. Upon checking the ex-husband’s phone, car, and rental property, they found nothing suspicious.
As the investigators went through her personal journal, they learned that she was infatuated with a local ventriloquist named Brent Vernon. They also considered him a person of interest until he told them that he had only a passing acquaintance with Tricia and provided a concrete alibi. For a short while, the police also looked into a pastor named Douglas Purchase, who had met the missing woman a couple of times during her frequent night beach walks. Although he refused to take a polygraph test, the police ruled him out as a potential suspect after conducting a thorough search of his home and car and verifying his alibi for the night of Tricia’s disappearance. When all the other leads went cold, the detectives focused their investigation on Steven Williams again.
The Killer Claimed Tricia Todd’s Death Was an Accident
This time, the authorities also interviewed Steven Williams’ live-in girlfriend, Laura, who denied having anything to do with the crime and provided an alibi. Meanwhile, Steven’s polygraph results came back inconclusive. While canvassing the area near Tricia’s house, they spotted a male figure walking down the stretch of road between her house and Steven’s rental property around 4 am on the night of her disappearance. Moreover, one of his neighbors also alleged that she saw Steven drive off in Tricia’s car around 1 am that same night. When confronted with the witness statement and grainy footage of the surveillance footage, Steven initially claimed that he found her unresponsive after returning home from the gas station. As per his account, he panicked and moved her body.
Since he hadn’t admitted to killing her, the police couldn’t charge him with murder. Instead, they charged him with child neglect for leaving Faith home alone at night. Knowing that the suspect was still holding something back, the detectives kept pushing him for a confession. In the end, he admitted to having an argument over money at his rental home. He claimed that the argument became heated and he pushed her, which caused her to fall and hit her head. Steven told the investigators that he then drove his ex-wife to the side of a road in the middle of the night and abandoned her with water and a granola bar. Consequently, he was charged with second-degree murder. Despite multiple attempts to find her, Steven repeatedly claimed he didn’t remember where he’d left Tricia.
Steven Williams is Currently Incarcerated at a Florida Prison
A couple of days after he was arrested for the killing of Tricia Todd, Steven Williams agreed to a plea deal that reduced his potential death penalty to 35 years in prison. In exchange, he agreed to reveal where his ex-wife’s remains were buried. That’s when the convict took the authorities to the Hungryland Wildlife and Environmental Area and marked the spot where he buried her inside a large container. Ultimately, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison. As of today, the 41-year-old killer is serving his sentence at Jefferson Correctional Institute in Jefferson County, Florida, with his release date scheduled for April 2048.
