Suspect Jeffrey Crum as he appeared in 1993. Credit: Hernando County Sheriff's Office
A man already serving two life sentences for sexual battery and attempted murder of a young teen in 1992 has been indicted by a Florida grand jury on similar charges and then some for the murder of a 12-year-old girl just 13 months after that January 1992 crime.
Jeffrey Norman Crum, 61, has now been indicted on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery in the February 1993 death of Jennifer Odom. Fittingly, the big break in Odom’s cold case came from biological evidence collected from the 1992 crime.
“Dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds, of items were tested and retested everything a new technology came out, thinking there was a glimmer of hope we’d be able to get the smoking gun based on that particular test,” said Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis during a press conference announcing the new charges.
Two young girls
Odom was abducted in February 1993 after stepping off her school bus in Pasco County, Florida. Her classmates recalled seeing a blue truck as she walked away from the bus, sparking a manhunt across several law enforcement agencies in the area.
Six days later, Odom’s body was found in a field in the neighboring Hernando County, badly beaten and violated.
Over the years, thousands of leads came in, evidence was retested extensively, and there were more than a few suspects, but nothing ever hit close enough to the truth.
Sometime before 2015, the biological evidence from the 1992 case—where a teen girl was abducted getting off the bus, brutally raped, left for dead with significant head and skull injuries, but survived—was retested and forensic experts were able to produce a full DNA profile. However, there were no hits in CODIS.
In February 2015, upon reviewing cold cases, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement took the unknown DNA profile generated in the 1992 case and looked for familial matches from local unsolved/cold cases with DNA. They quickly identified Crum’s son as a close DNA match to the unknown profile—making Jeffrey Crum the new No. 1 suspect in the 1992 attempted murder case.
And if Crum abducted a teen girl off a bus, brutally raped her and tried to murder her in January 1992, did he succeed in doing the same to a 12-year-old girl in February 1993 just one county over?
“The MOs in both cases were almost identical,” said Nienhuis.
Crum immediately became the No. 1 suspect in Odom’s case as well. But, he was not a suspect before 2015 so intensive investigation was necessary. This took several years of investigators interviewing dozens and dozens of people who may have known or loosely associated with Crum before, during and after Odom’s abduction.
Eventually, once investigators felt comfortable with all the facts they collected, the information was turned over to Bill Gladson, state attorney for Florida’s 5th judicial circuit. On July 22, a grand jury heard the case and indicted Crum for the murder, kidnapping and sexual battery of Odom.
More information, more victims?
During the press conference announcing the charges late last week, a visibly disgusted Nienhuis reviewed some of Crum’s prior arrests:
- 1981- armed robbery
- 1985- Sexual assault, kidnapping and false imprisonment
- 1987 and 1988- carrying a concealed weapon
- 1998- domestic battery (arrested three times)
- 2001- violation of probation
- 2005- aggravated assault with a deadly weapon
- 2015- sexual battery by a weapon or force with victim under 12 years of age.
Nienhuis also showed a current photo of Crum, as well as a photo of him taken in 1993. The sheriff said he would not be surprised if there are additional victims out there, and he’s hoping others—be it victims or witnesses—come forward now that Crum is behind bars.
“Over the years, we have had a couple anonymous tips come in, and based on the content of those tips, we are 100% positive there are individuals out there that have more information about the Jennifer Odom abduction and murder,” said Nienhuis. “We would like those people to come forward now. We beg and plead for anyone with information on the Odom case to come forward so we can make what we believe is an excellent case that much stronger, to make absolutely sure he is held accountable for what we believe he did to Jennifer Odom.”