Ronnie Hyde.Photo: news4jax
Knives, a stained mattress and photos of a headless torso were displayed for jurors Tuesday as the trial began for a former Florida youth pastor charged with the murder and dismemberment of a 16-year-old boy 28 years ago.
But prosecutor Alan Mizrahi said Hyde “violently murdered” the victim, and was almost caught in the act of disposing the body behind a Lake City dumpster, where Laster’s severed torso was discovered in 1994, along with a flannel shirt bearing Hyde’s DNA, according toNews4Jax.
Fred Laster.
Laster’s family told investigators that Hyde had picked him up that same week, and they never saw Laster again, the outlet reports. Information presented to jurors on Tuesday also alleged that Hyde had been a foster parent to the teen, even declaring him on his taxes as a dependent.
The torso was sent to the Jacksonville Medical Examiner’s Office and was found to be that of a male younger than 25. Subsequent examinations further narrowed the victim’s age, but a positive identification wouldn’t come until years later.
In the meantime, in 1995, a missing persons report filed with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office showed that Laster’s family hadn’t seen him for nearly eight months. At the time, they believed he may have been traveling with a band.
Not until 2014, when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children first published information about the torso on its website, did Laster’s family contact the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.
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Detectives then sent DNA samples of family members to the University of North Texas Human Identification Laboratory and in February 2016, lab workers confirmed a familial link with the remains.
From there, the investigation quickly turned to Hyde, a social acquaintance of the Laster family. In one troubling allegation, Laster’s sister recalled the two of them spending the night with Hyde and says she woke to find Hyde nude and attempting to wake her brother, according to the arrest warrant.
Laster’s brother alleged that Hyde owned a set of knives consistent with those found in the dumpster, and said that Hyde had been taking nursing classes.
“This leads to the belief that Hyde has anatomical knowledge and would be familiar with joints, bone structures and bodily organs placement, which would be of value to him during dismemberment of a body,” Columbia County Sheriff’s deputy Jimmy Watson wrote in the warrant.
In court, Laster’s sister Dawn Williams recalled that she had attempted to file a missing persons report, first in Nassau County and then in Jacksonville, and even called Hyde looking for help.
“I called Ron’s house and asked him where Freddy was, or — I asked him where Freddy was, or what did he do with my brother,” she said, according to First Coast News. “And he laughed.”
Prosecutor Mizrahi asked her, “Did he say anything else?”
“No,” she replied.
The trial is expected to last about one week.
source: people.com
