By TODD LESKANIC | The Tampa Tribune
A 51-year-old truck driver goes to trial this week in the stabbing death of a Land O' Lakes woman.
Derral Wayne Hodgkins faces a possible death sentence if found guilty of first-degree murder. Jury selection is set to begin today, although opening statements are not scheduled until Friday.
Hodgkins is accused of killing Teresa Lodge, a 46-year-old waitress who was found dead in her apartment on Sept. 28, 2006. An autopsy revealed Lodge had been stabbed in the chest seven times and her neck had been cut, according to court documents.
DNA found under Lodge's fingernails led Pasco County sheriff's investigators to Hodgkins, a convicted felon and sex offender who had known Lodge since the mid-1980s. Hodgkins was arrested in November 2007 and has been in the Land O' Lakes Jail awaiting trial since then.
His attorney, Bjorn Brunvand, declined to comment, saying only, "My client maintains his innocence and shouldn't be judged by his past."
Prosecutors scored a victory in 2010 when a judge ruled that the jury in the case can hear evidence that Hodgkins was on lifetime probation when Lodge was found dead. The panel, however, won't hear the reason why he was on probation.
Prosecutors plan to argue that Hodgkins went to Lodge's apartment on Land O' Lakes Boulevard on Sept. 27, 2006. According to court documents, the two were in Lodge's bedroom when Hodgkins struck her in the head and mouth, then choked her unconscious during a struggle.
Investigators said Hodgkins stabbed Lodge and cut her throat while she was unconscious, then tried to clean up the apartment.
Prosecutors will argue that Hodgkins decided to kill Lodge because he knew any new criminal charge would violate his probation and send him back to prison for life.
Before his arrest, Hodgkins told investigators he dated Lodge in the 1980s and had last seen her at a gas station several weeks before her death. He said their only contact was a casual hug and kiss, documents state, and he denied being inside her apartment.
When confronted with the DNA evidence, documents state, Hodgkins changed his story and said Lodge had scratched him during the encounter at the gas station. He then said they had sex at Lodge's apartment a month prior to her death. Pushed further, he said they had sex at her apartment three days before her death and that she scratched his back during the encounter.
According to court documents, Hodgkins made admissions to another inmate at the county jail.
Robert Weeks told detectives that Hodgkins said he was seeing Lodge and was afraid she would cause problems in his relationship with a younger woman.
Pasco County records show Hodgkins married a 21-year-old woman in October 2007.
Hodgkins is serving probation related to a Hillsborough County case involving a 12-year-old girl.
In 1988, he pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree felony murder, kidnapping, sexual battery and aggravated battery. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison but was released in August 2004 to serve lifetime probation.
No comments:
Post a Comment