Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Lehigh, FL: Lehigh woman charged in death of boyfriend

On Aug. 24 Melissa Webb told a friend that
her boyfriend Bryan Sorendino went to
Jacksonville to visit his daughter.

A few days later, she told another friend
that Sorendino was in Orlando with Navy
buddies.

But Lee County sheriff’s deputies say
Webb, 28, couldn’t keep her secret. She
confided in two people that she’d killed
Sorendino. And according to her arrest
report, one of them would help her load his
body - wrapped in a brown comforter and
a red sleeping bag - into the trunk of a
car.

Webb remained in the Lee County Jail late
Tuesday. A judge withheld bond at her first
appearance.

Deputies have been investigating the case
since Sept. 14, when Sorendino’s body was f
ound at the Lee and Charlotte County line.
His family and Webb’s mother did not
return calls for comment Tuesday.

Webb is the first woman to face a homicide
charge in Lee County this year. Two women
faced such charges in 2010 - Leatha
McSwain-James, who reportedly stabbed
her husband, and Maria Guadalupe Corsa-
Hernandez, who deputies say killed a child
in her care.

Experts say Webb, if guilty, is like the
majority of women who commit homicides
- they most commonly target romantic
partners or their children. But overall, w
omen murder far less frequently than
men, said Vickie Nelson, a a sociology
professor at California State University,
Northridge, committing about 10 percent
of homicides since 1965.

Nelson, an author of books on the subject,
said this is because of perceived gender
roles.

“This is some violation of some assumed
trait of women that we’re supposed to be
nurturing,” Nelson said.

Fred Schaerf said lower levels of hormones
like testosterone in women makes them
less prone to violence, noting the lack of
female sex offenders.

“Males are programmed to be more
aggressive, women to be more nurturing,”

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Schaerf said.

On Aug. 20, Webb called a friend for help.

When he got to her house, she told him
there was a body in a red sleeping bag
next to the front entry way. She needed
help putting it in the trunk of Sorendino’s
Camry, the witness told deputies.


The two loaded Sorendino’s body, then
Webb told the man to wait at the house,
the report said. She returned a few hours
later.

A few days later, Webb asked her friend to
dispose of a small-caliber handgun. He
refused, the report said.

Then Webb asked the man to help her
ditch the Camry. But after he agreed, she
left him to go see her mother and didn’t
return, the report said. When she didn’t
respond to phone calls, the man parked
the car in a lot, later telling detectives
where it was.

The unidentified man has not been
charged, and deputies have not said what
Webb’s motive could have been. Sheriff’s
spokesman Tony Schall said the
investigation is ongoing.

Webb admitted to her second confidant
that she shot Sorendino, the report said.
She also told the man, whom she’d known
about a year, she buried Sorendino’s body.

After their conversation, Webb called to
thank him for listening. When the man
asked what she was referring to, the report
said, she responded, “That I killed Bryan.”

Sorendino’s friends got suspicious when
they hadn’t heard from him.

One friend remembered Sorendino calling
Aug. 19 to say he’d ended things with
Webb a few days before, the report said.
Later that day, Sorendino called back to
say Webb had broken into his home.

After not hearing from Sorendino for five
days, the friend went to his house. Webb
told the friend Sorendino was in
Jacksonville.

Another friend whom Sorendino owed
money, also drove by the house around the
same time, the report said. Webb told him
Sorendino was in Orlando. and wasn’t
coming back.

After finding the body, deputies obtained a
search warrant for the Fort Myers home
Webb and Sorendino shared. There, they
found blood splattered on the stairs and

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kitchen floor, as if someone had tried to
clean up, the report said.

And on the dining room floor, they found a
brown pillow case that matched the
comforter Sorendino’s body was encased
in.

Using that evidence and the witness
statements, deputies had enough probable
cause to take Webb into custody late
Monday.

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