Individual Details
Jennifer Renee Odom
(August 25, 1980 - February 19, 1993)
DEPUTIES SEARCH FOR GIRL Series: TIMES DIGEST
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 20, 1993;
Pasco County deputies were searching Friday night for a 12-year-old girl who didn't come home from school. Jennifer Renee Odom, of Jim Denny Road in the St. Joseph area of East Pasco, got off the school bus with friends about 3 p.m. at Jessamine Road, said sheriff's spokesman Jon Powers.
Her parents became concerned when she didn't arrive home, and they began searching the neighborhood. The Sheriff's Office was contacted about 4:30 p.m. The Sheriff's Office searched the area around the bus stop with a helicopter, police dogs and about 10 deputies. As of 9:50 p.m., they had found no sign of Jennifer.
The girl, who attends Weightman Middle School, is 4 foot 10 and 80 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing a red pullover sweater over a white turtleneck, a white zip-up Hooters sweatjacket, white jeans and black lace-up boots, and was carrying school books, clarinet, and tan and brown purse. Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at (904) 521-5100.
`I JUST WANT JENNY HOME'
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 25, 1993; SALLY HICKS;RICK GERSHMAN;
Full Text:
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Feb 25, 1993
Two weeks before she disappeared without a trace from her bus stop, Jennifer Renee Odom had a long talk with her mom about strangers.
If someone bothers you, drop your books, drop your clarinet and run, Renee Converse recalled telling her 12-year-old daughter. That's one thing that sticks in Mrs. Converse's mind about Jennifer's vanishing: "There aren't any books."
To her, it's one more sign that the bright, bubbly seventh-grader was snatched without a chance to get away Friday afternoon after getting off the school bus.
Mrs. Converse, her husband, Clark, and other family members gathered Wednesday in their living room to speak publicly for the first time about Jennifer's disappearance. Partly as a plea for her safe return, partly as a way to say thanks to those who have helped in the search, and partly as a way to try to reassure the child in the only way they know how, family members sat in front of a bank of microphones and television cameras.
Convinced that she was abducted and that she still is alive, family members begged, teary-eyed, for her captor to drop her off - anywhere - so she could come home.
"We know Jennifer is still with us on this world. God will find a way for her to find us," said her maternal grandmother, Margie Denney. "Jennifer needs her family. She needs us as badly as we need her."
"I just want Jenny home," said her 9-year-old sister, Jessie, her eyes and face turning red as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Pasco County sheriff's deputies say they have few clues in the disappearance, except that some children on Jennifer's bus said they saw a blue pickup or flatbed truck near the stop at Jim Denney and Jessamine roads in the rural East Pasco community of Saint Joseph near Dade City..
Family members say they're certain that Jennifer did not run away. The night before she disappeared, she was busy practicing her clarinet for a performance Saturday. She and a friend were giggling and laughing and having a good time.
"She was about to explode, she was so full of life," said her aunt, Mary Beth Denney. "She wasn't distressed."
Correcting themselves when they inadvertently referred to Jennifer in the past tense, they described her as intelligent, mature and a bit of a perfectionist - as close to a perfect child as you could get, said her stepfather, Clark Converse.
She's a champion barefoot water-skier, on the honor roll, and was chosen student of the month. She picked up the clarinet and quickly became first chair in the Thomas E. Weightman Middle School band, then decided to take up the bass clarinet. She babysat her young cousins on Saturdays and is secretary of her Catholic Youth Organization.
When she grows up she wants to be an attorney, said Mrs. Converse, who works for Pasco County as a technical librarian.
They're also convinced she would never willingly go with a stranger. Mrs. Converse described herself as "paranoid" about her children's safety, and the conversation of two weeks ago was just one of many they had had about how to handle strangers.
"We used to say, "Chill out. This is the country. This is where we grew up,' " Mary Beth Denney said. But they all understood the need for caution: "Jennifer was so pretty, so energetic and bubbly. She was the type of child anybody would want. We were overly protective of her because of that."
Jennifer was taught to be aware of her surroundings, though Converse speculated that the presence of workers in the surrounding groves recently might have inured her to the sight of strange vehicles on the usually isolated road.
The family moved to their new home on Jim Denney Road in November after Renee and Clark Converse married. Even before then the 15-acre spread nestled among woods and citrus trees was home: Mrs. Converse and her siblings grew up there, and her parents, brother and sister-in-law live next door on the land the family bought in 1960. The mother and girls had lived there with Mrs. Converse's parents for a while, and Jennifer and her sister even took the bus to their grandparents' home after school when Mrs. Converse lived in nearby San Antonio because she was was concerned about their safety, grandfather Jim Denney said.
The Converses' blue-and-white manufactured home has the sparkle of a new home, and a loving one: Photographs of the children hang in every room, pictures of the girls ice skating, playing miniature golf, dressed in white sailor dresses with matching hats. Even the family's springer spaniel, Gypsy, has a spot in the photo display
.
In Jennifer's room a Winnie the Pooh bear shares space on her desk with water-skiing trophies, photographs of relatives and a "Just Say No" sticker. The pink-and-green spread on her narrow wooden bed is perfectly made. Her cat, variously called Pepper, Fat Cat and Mama, slept with Jennifer there.
If these were supposed to be the good times, the Denney family also has faced tough times before, such as when Mrs. Converse and the girls moved in with her parents for several years after her divorce from the girls' father, Sidney Pete Odom, in 1986. Odom, who now lives in Orlando, never paid child support or took much interest in the girls, Jim Denney said. He has called twice since the disappearance but hasn't visited, Mrs. Converse said.
Until two or three weeks ago, two neighbor children got off at the same time as Jennifer. But the family recently moved away, and each girl had to walk home alone. Mrs. Converse and her husband, who works at the Pasco County garbage incinerator, both were at work, but the children were instructed to call Mrs. Converse so she knew they arrived safely.
On Friday, there was no call from Jennifer. When Jessie arrived home about an hour later, she called to say there was no sign of her. Within 90 minutes of the time she got off the bus, deputies had been called out. That evening the first of several massive search parties was organized to scout the groves nearby.
Since then, the family has paced, worried and waited. They leave the lights on at night and rush out to investigate any sound in the back yard, thinking that maybe she has returned. They've distributed fliers, fielded phone calls and have been in touch with the Adam Walsh Center-Florida.
They've thought of the worst and are hoping for the best.
MISSING GIRL FOUND DEAD IN HERNANDO COUNTY
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 26, 1993; Sally Hicks; Wes Platt; Larry Dougherty; Nancy Weil;
In the days after Jennifer Renee Odom disappeared, her parents kept looking out their front window, hoping to see the 12-year-old walking home down Jim Denney Road.
That hope lasted until 4:10 p.m. Thursday. A dark blue sheriff's car rumbled down the limerock drive. Inside, Pasco Sheriff Lee Cannon carried photographs taken of jewelry found on a body discovered earlier that day.
It was Jennifer's.
Six days after she vanished from her bus stop at Jim Denney and Jessamine roads in the rural East Pasco community of Saint Joseph, a Hernando County couple found the remains of the 4-foot-10-inch seventh-grader. The body was discovered Thursday morning on a horse-riding trail among groves of orange and pine trees near Spring Lake in Hernando County, about 10 miles from where she disappeared about 3 p.m. Friday.
The discovery ended the intense search that had become a near obsession among residents of the rural communities dotting East Pasco County. Hundreds of volunteers combed the orange groves and woods near her home the weekend after her disappearance; thousands of fliers with the smiling face of the champion barefoot waterskier and honor student plastered surrounding towns.
At a brief, 5:30 p.m. roadside news conference in Spring Lake, Pasco Sheriff Cannon and Hernando Sheriff Thomas Mylander said little except that the body found a quarter-mile south of Powell Road west of Spring Lake Highway had been tentatively identified as Jennifer's. The medical examiner will make the final identification, and results of the autopsy are expected to be released today.
Neither Mylander nor Cannon would give an apparent cause of death, whether there were any signs of molestation, or how long the body had been on the path. However, several local residents said the riding trail was used daily.
The husband and wife who discovered the body had been part of a large group that searched but found no sign of Jennifer in the Spring Lake area last weekend, according to Hernando Sheriff's Office spokesman Frank Bierwiler. The couple is not being identified.
News reporters and television crews swarmed the country road, waiting for hours in the sun for information about the body. Deputies busied themselves writing down the tag number of each passing car as possible leads.
Rumors of the discovery quickly swept south: to nearby Dade City and to Jennifer's school, where the principal by early afternoon was preparing teachers and counselors for the worst.
Just one day before, Jennifer's extended family had gathered before television cameras and news reporters to say they were convinced she was still alive and to plead for her release.
"She's out there and she's waiting and we have to hurry," her aunt, Mary Beth Converse, said then. She said her niece was well-coached about avoiding strangers and would never have gone with someone willingly.
Thursday the family was silent. Cars carrying sheriff's deputies and family friends drove to and from the home in which Jennifer's mother and stepfather, Renee and Clark Converse, had hoped to start a new and happy family after their November marriage.
The Rev. Paul Romfh, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Saint Joseph, where Jennifer had been secretary of her Catholic Youth Organization, said family members had tried to keep their hopes up even as the rumors about the discovery began on Thursday.
"They're numb," said Romfh Thursday evening. He had visited the family every day since the disappearance. "When you're numb you don't feel. You start to live when you start feeling things again, and it's going to be awfully painful."
The Converses have been helped by their faith and strong family network. Mrs. Converse's parents and brother and sister-in-law live next door on the property the family purchased in 1960.
"I don't know how any mother could handle something like this if she didn't have somebody to hang onto," Romfh said.
People who knew Jennifer remembered her as a bright child who was successful at almost everything she tried, from waterskiing to playing the clarinet in the middle school band.
Katherine Piersall, principal of Thomas E. Weightman Middle School, where Jennifer went to school, said crisis teams and local ministers would be available for children who needed help dealing with their grief.
"I think the grownups, we knew it was going to come," Piersall said. "It was just like it was our worst fears. It's still just a terrible, terrible shock. We're just all trying to be strong for each other. We've got a very good focus because we've got to be here for the kids tomorrow."
Piersall has known Jennifer since she started kindergarten at San Antonio Elementary, where Piersall had been principal before moving to Weightman Middle.
Asked how she will remember Jennifer, Piersall drew a breath and said sadly, "I think I will remember her as one of my doll babies."
Thirteen-year-old Jessica Floyd, who had known Jennifer since the third grade, said Thursday she couldn't stop crying after learning of her friend's death. She rode the same school bus as Jennifer and remembered seeing her on the bus Friday moments before Jennifer vanished.
"I just want to know what happened to her. I just hope whoever did it to her just gets locked away or killed for whatever happened to her," she said.
Floyd said she's not frightened for herself - her parents are making sure someone meets her at the bus every day - but she's sad thinking about the friend with whom she shared a tent on a Girl Scout campout.
"I just think it's really dumb that somebody should have to die so young and never have a chance to grow up or anything," she said through tears. "She's never going to have a chance to get a driver's license or get married or anything she might have wanted to do."
JENNIFER DIED OF HEAD WOUND
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 27, 1993; Chuch Murphy; Victoria White; Bill Stevens; Sally Hicks; Wes Platt; Robert Rogers;
Jennifer Odom's body lay for an extended period of time in the stand of pine trees where she was found Thursday, and she died of a head wound, sheriff's officials said Friday.
Beyond that, detectives in Pasco and Hernando County have little information about the death of the 12-year-old Pasco girl who disappeared eight days ago as she walked the 200 yards from her school bus stop to her home in St. Joseph.
Instead, deputies and other law enforcement officers from Tampa to Citrus County spent Friday chasing down scores of leads, most of which related to blue pickup trucks. A blue pickup was seen near the bus stop where Jennifer was last seen on Feb. 19. It is the only lead detectives have disclosed about who might have abducted and killed Jennifer.
Late Friday, deputies in Citrus County were investigating a report from Carol Tucker, who was sitting in her mobile home near the Withlacoochee Forest, that a man in a blue pickup had slowly driven past her house and tried to entice her 2 1/2-year-old daughter to him. As soon as I opened the door, he was gone.
The woman told deputies the incident happened about 2 p.m., but she did not call deputies until a neighbor convinced her an hour later that the truck and the man might be related to Jennifer's case. The truck had a Pasco license tag with 71V as its last three digits.
Tucker said the driver was a white man in his late 20s or early 30s with slick black hair, sideburns that curled toward his cheeks and a long silver earring.
Hernando sheriff's Sgt. Frank Bierwiler would not say whether the "trauma to the head" was the result of a gunshot, some other wound or a beating. Later, Bierwiler appeared on television, saying she died of blunt trauma to the head, indicating she had been beaten.
Hernando Sheriff Thomas Mylander said the autopsy also indicated that Jennifer had been in a stand of pine trees near Spring Lake "for some time." Mylander attributed that belief to the level of decomposition in the body. He declined to release any other details.
The body, positively identified as Jennifer on Friday through fingerprints, was found face down and naked by a Hernando County couple searching for the girl Thursday afternoon.
After news reports of Jennifer's abduction and then her murder, detectives from Tampa to Inverness have been besieged by telephone calls about the case. Pasco Sheriff's Office spokesman Jon Powers said about 1,000 tips from the public had been received since a task force was formed early this week.
Jennifer's family spent Friday grieving in their home in the small community of St. Joseph, about 10 miles from where the body was found. On Wednesday, they had made an impassioned plea for help from the public to find Jennifer, but they have made no public appearance since the body was found.
The Rev. Paul Romfh, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Saint Joseph and a friend of Jennifer's family, said funeral services could not be scheduled until the medical examiner's office had released the body. Romfh visited the family on Friday.
"The family is trying to get on, trying to pick up the pieces," Romfh said. "They're still grieving. It's going to take awhile."
In the area where Jennifer's body was found, a bystander took a piece of crime-scene tape left behind as sheriff's deputies departed and tied it into a yellow bow around an oak tree. Later, on the spot where Jennifer's body was found, someone placed a cross and flowers.
OBITUARIES Series: OBITUARIES
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Mar 4, 1993;
ODOM, JENNIFER RENEE, 12, of St. Joseph, died in February 1993. She was a lifelong resident of St. Joseph. She was a student at Thomas E. Weightman Middle School and a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the Future Farmers of America and the American Waterskiers Association.
Survivors include her parents, Clark and Renee Converse; a sister, Jessica Odom, St. Joseph; her maternal grandparents, Jim and Margie Denney, St. Joseph; her paternal grandparents, Pete Odom, Dade City, and Pat Godbey, Ocala; four great-grandmothers; and several aunts and uncles. Coleman and Ferguson Funeral Home, Dade City.
JENNIFER'S LIFE TREASURES WILL GO WITH HER
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Mar 5, 1993; Sally Hicks
Jennifer Renee Odom's aunt and grandmother approached a table beside the slain girl's casket and placed a basket on it, a last gift to the girl whose life will never reach beyond the seventh grade.
On one side, the table held the treasures and trinkets from Jennifer's life: a "best friend" charm on a gold chain, a doll in a lace-trimmed dress, a troll with orange hair, a pair of earrings in the shape of bare feet, a satin jacket from Weightman Middle School and the basket with her name painted in blue.
"She's going to take those with her . . . things that she liked," explained Jennifer's mother, Renee Converse. She greeted the hundreds of friends and family who came to the funeral home visitation Thursday afternoon, exactly one week after her 12-year-old daughter's body was found on a horseback riding trail in Hernando County.
On the other side of the casket sat a framed photograph of Jennifer, the picture now so familiar to people across the Tampa Bay area who have been gripped by the story of the 12-year-old abducted from her bus stop and murdered two weeks ago. The killer has not be found.
HUNDREDS OF MOURNERS GATHER TO SAY, `OH, JENNY, GOODBYE'
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Mar 6, 1993; Sally Hicks;
It was a day of clear, cool sunshine that dappled orange groves and glinted on cattle ponds. It was a day when a 12-year-old girl should have been sitting in class, waiting to get outside, looking forward to the weekend, laughing with friends.
It was the day to bury Jennifer Renee Odom.
About 800 mourners turned out for the 10 a.m. funeral Mass on Friday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in St. Joseph, the small, rural east Pasco community where the popular seventh-grader was kidnapped two weeks ago. Her killer has not been caught.
The small church where Jennifer received her first Communion quickly filled up, and hundreds of people outside listened to the service on loudspeakers. Television and still cameras recorded the event for the thousands of people throughout Tampa Bay who followed the story of Jennifer's disappearance and killing.
Inside, the Rev. Paul Romfh urged the somber crowd to remember the girl's life, not her death.
"We tell Jennifer's story," he said.
"She had a devastating smile," he said, urging them to remember the happy girl who played the clarinet and was an honor student and a champion barefoot waterskier.
Jennifer's parents, Clark and Renee Converse, sat in the front pew during the Mass with Jennifer's younger sister, Jessica, and other family members, weeping occasionally and mouthing the familiar words of the responses. Jennifer's casket, covered with a white cloth, sat beside them in the aisle.
Romfh asked the grieving community to keep its faith amid the anger and sorrow.
"If we're honest, we have to admit we're here today with a question. The question is, `Why? Why? Why did God allow this to happen?' Even as we ask, we know we will not receive an answer."
But, he said, "No matter how sad and horrible things may be, Jennifer will be there to welcome us when our time comes."
After the hourlong service, people streamed out of the church, most walking the quarter-mile to the small cemetery surrounded by orange groves and shaded by evergreens. Crowds of people massed at the tent-covered grave, standing among dozens of wreaths and flower arrangements.
The day flashed alternately bright and cloudy as Romfh placed a small cross on the coffin and prayed, his words punctuated by the moaning of a small knot of teenage girls who stood nearby, some holding red carnations.
Mrs. Converse grimaced with sorrow as Romfh recited the Lord's Prayer and then took the cross and handed it to her.
Slowly Jennifer's friends, neighbors, family, teachers and classmates filed past the light-brown casket, many laying a single carnation or rose on top. Someone tied onto the casket a red, heart-shaped balloon with the words "I love you," which bobbed in the wind. Others simply touched the coffin in a last gesture of farewell. Mothers led away their weeping sons and daughters, arms around the youngsters as tears streamed down the cheeks of parent and child.
One girl sobbed aloud: "Oh, Jenny, goodbye."
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 20, 1993;
Pasco County deputies were searching Friday night for a 12-year-old girl who didn't come home from school. Jennifer Renee Odom, of Jim Denny Road in the St. Joseph area of East Pasco, got off the school bus with friends about 3 p.m. at Jessamine Road, said sheriff's spokesman Jon Powers.
Her parents became concerned when she didn't arrive home, and they began searching the neighborhood. The Sheriff's Office was contacted about 4:30 p.m. The Sheriff's Office searched the area around the bus stop with a helicopter, police dogs and about 10 deputies. As of 9:50 p.m., they had found no sign of Jennifer.
The girl, who attends Weightman Middle School, is 4 foot 10 and 80 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing a red pullover sweater over a white turtleneck, a white zip-up Hooters sweatjacket, white jeans and black lace-up boots, and was carrying school books, clarinet, and tan and brown purse. Anyone with information is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at (904) 521-5100.
`I JUST WANT JENNY HOME'
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 25, 1993; SALLY HICKS;RICK GERSHMAN;
Full Text:
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Feb 25, 1993
Two weeks before she disappeared without a trace from her bus stop, Jennifer Renee Odom had a long talk with her mom about strangers.
If someone bothers you, drop your books, drop your clarinet and run, Renee Converse recalled telling her 12-year-old daughter. That's one thing that sticks in Mrs. Converse's mind about Jennifer's vanishing: "There aren't any books."
To her, it's one more sign that the bright, bubbly seventh-grader was snatched without a chance to get away Friday afternoon after getting off the school bus.
Mrs. Converse, her husband, Clark, and other family members gathered Wednesday in their living room to speak publicly for the first time about Jennifer's disappearance. Partly as a plea for her safe return, partly as a way to say thanks to those who have helped in the search, and partly as a way to try to reassure the child in the only way they know how, family members sat in front of a bank of microphones and television cameras.
Convinced that she was abducted and that she still is alive, family members begged, teary-eyed, for her captor to drop her off - anywhere - so she could come home.
"We know Jennifer is still with us on this world. God will find a way for her to find us," said her maternal grandmother, Margie Denney. "Jennifer needs her family. She needs us as badly as we need her."
"I just want Jenny home," said her 9-year-old sister, Jessie, her eyes and face turning red as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Pasco County sheriff's deputies say they have few clues in the disappearance, except that some children on Jennifer's bus said they saw a blue pickup or flatbed truck near the stop at Jim Denney and Jessamine roads in the rural East Pasco community of Saint Joseph near Dade City..
Family members say they're certain that Jennifer did not run away. The night before she disappeared, she was busy practicing her clarinet for a performance Saturday. She and a friend were giggling and laughing and having a good time.
"She was about to explode, she was so full of life," said her aunt, Mary Beth Denney. "She wasn't distressed."
Correcting themselves when they inadvertently referred to Jennifer in the past tense, they described her as intelligent, mature and a bit of a perfectionist - as close to a perfect child as you could get, said her stepfather, Clark Converse.
She's a champion barefoot water-skier, on the honor roll, and was chosen student of the month. She picked up the clarinet and quickly became first chair in the Thomas E. Weightman Middle School band, then decided to take up the bass clarinet. She babysat her young cousins on Saturdays and is secretary of her Catholic Youth Organization.
When she grows up she wants to be an attorney, said Mrs. Converse, who works for Pasco County as a technical librarian.
They're also convinced she would never willingly go with a stranger. Mrs. Converse described herself as "paranoid" about her children's safety, and the conversation of two weeks ago was just one of many they had had about how to handle strangers.
"We used to say, "Chill out. This is the country. This is where we grew up,' " Mary Beth Denney said. But they all understood the need for caution: "Jennifer was so pretty, so energetic and bubbly. She was the type of child anybody would want. We were overly protective of her because of that."
Jennifer was taught to be aware of her surroundings, though Converse speculated that the presence of workers in the surrounding groves recently might have inured her to the sight of strange vehicles on the usually isolated road.
The family moved to their new home on Jim Denney Road in November after Renee and Clark Converse married. Even before then the 15-acre spread nestled among woods and citrus trees was home: Mrs. Converse and her siblings grew up there, and her parents, brother and sister-in-law live next door on the land the family bought in 1960. The mother and girls had lived there with Mrs. Converse's parents for a while, and Jennifer and her sister even took the bus to their grandparents' home after school when Mrs. Converse lived in nearby San Antonio because she was was concerned about their safety, grandfather Jim Denney said.
The Converses' blue-and-white manufactured home has the sparkle of a new home, and a loving one: Photographs of the children hang in every room, pictures of the girls ice skating, playing miniature golf, dressed in white sailor dresses with matching hats. Even the family's springer spaniel, Gypsy, has a spot in the photo display
.
In Jennifer's room a Winnie the Pooh bear shares space on her desk with water-skiing trophies, photographs of relatives and a "Just Say No" sticker. The pink-and-green spread on her narrow wooden bed is perfectly made. Her cat, variously called Pepper, Fat Cat and Mama, slept with Jennifer there.
If these were supposed to be the good times, the Denney family also has faced tough times before, such as when Mrs. Converse and the girls moved in with her parents for several years after her divorce from the girls' father, Sidney Pete Odom, in 1986. Odom, who now lives in Orlando, never paid child support or took much interest in the girls, Jim Denney said. He has called twice since the disappearance but hasn't visited, Mrs. Converse said.
Until two or three weeks ago, two neighbor children got off at the same time as Jennifer. But the family recently moved away, and each girl had to walk home alone. Mrs. Converse and her husband, who works at the Pasco County garbage incinerator, both were at work, but the children were instructed to call Mrs. Converse so she knew they arrived safely.
On Friday, there was no call from Jennifer. When Jessie arrived home about an hour later, she called to say there was no sign of her. Within 90 minutes of the time she got off the bus, deputies had been called out. That evening the first of several massive search parties was organized to scout the groves nearby.
Since then, the family has paced, worried and waited. They leave the lights on at night and rush out to investigate any sound in the back yard, thinking that maybe she has returned. They've distributed fliers, fielded phone calls and have been in touch with the Adam Walsh Center-Florida.
They've thought of the worst and are hoping for the best.
MISSING GIRL FOUND DEAD IN HERNANDO COUNTY
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 26, 1993; Sally Hicks; Wes Platt; Larry Dougherty; Nancy Weil;
In the days after Jennifer Renee Odom disappeared, her parents kept looking out their front window, hoping to see the 12-year-old walking home down Jim Denney Road.
That hope lasted until 4:10 p.m. Thursday. A dark blue sheriff's car rumbled down the limerock drive. Inside, Pasco Sheriff Lee Cannon carried photographs taken of jewelry found on a body discovered earlier that day.
It was Jennifer's.
Six days after she vanished from her bus stop at Jim Denney and Jessamine roads in the rural East Pasco community of Saint Joseph, a Hernando County couple found the remains of the 4-foot-10-inch seventh-grader. The body was discovered Thursday morning on a horse-riding trail among groves of orange and pine trees near Spring Lake in Hernando County, about 10 miles from where she disappeared about 3 p.m. Friday.
The discovery ended the intense search that had become a near obsession among residents of the rural communities dotting East Pasco County. Hundreds of volunteers combed the orange groves and woods near her home the weekend after her disappearance; thousands of fliers with the smiling face of the champion barefoot waterskier and honor student plastered surrounding towns.
At a brief, 5:30 p.m. roadside news conference in Spring Lake, Pasco Sheriff Cannon and Hernando Sheriff Thomas Mylander said little except that the body found a quarter-mile south of Powell Road west of Spring Lake Highway had been tentatively identified as Jennifer's. The medical examiner will make the final identification, and results of the autopsy are expected to be released today.
Neither Mylander nor Cannon would give an apparent cause of death, whether there were any signs of molestation, or how long the body had been on the path. However, several local residents said the riding trail was used daily.
The husband and wife who discovered the body had been part of a large group that searched but found no sign of Jennifer in the Spring Lake area last weekend, according to Hernando Sheriff's Office spokesman Frank Bierwiler. The couple is not being identified.
News reporters and television crews swarmed the country road, waiting for hours in the sun for information about the body. Deputies busied themselves writing down the tag number of each passing car as possible leads.
Rumors of the discovery quickly swept south: to nearby Dade City and to Jennifer's school, where the principal by early afternoon was preparing teachers and counselors for the worst.
Just one day before, Jennifer's extended family had gathered before television cameras and news reporters to say they were convinced she was still alive and to plead for her release.
"She's out there and she's waiting and we have to hurry," her aunt, Mary Beth Converse, said then. She said her niece was well-coached about avoiding strangers and would never have gone with someone willingly.
Thursday the family was silent. Cars carrying sheriff's deputies and family friends drove to and from the home in which Jennifer's mother and stepfather, Renee and Clark Converse, had hoped to start a new and happy family after their November marriage.
The Rev. Paul Romfh, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Saint Joseph, where Jennifer had been secretary of her Catholic Youth Organization, said family members had tried to keep their hopes up even as the rumors about the discovery began on Thursday.
"They're numb," said Romfh Thursday evening. He had visited the family every day since the disappearance. "When you're numb you don't feel. You start to live when you start feeling things again, and it's going to be awfully painful."
The Converses have been helped by their faith and strong family network. Mrs. Converse's parents and brother and sister-in-law live next door on the property the family purchased in 1960.
"I don't know how any mother could handle something like this if she didn't have somebody to hang onto," Romfh said.
People who knew Jennifer remembered her as a bright child who was successful at almost everything she tried, from waterskiing to playing the clarinet in the middle school band.
Katherine Piersall, principal of Thomas E. Weightman Middle School, where Jennifer went to school, said crisis teams and local ministers would be available for children who needed help dealing with their grief.
"I think the grownups, we knew it was going to come," Piersall said. "It was just like it was our worst fears. It's still just a terrible, terrible shock. We're just all trying to be strong for each other. We've got a very good focus because we've got to be here for the kids tomorrow."
Piersall has known Jennifer since she started kindergarten at San Antonio Elementary, where Piersall had been principal before moving to Weightman Middle.
Asked how she will remember Jennifer, Piersall drew a breath and said sadly, "I think I will remember her as one of my doll babies."
Thirteen-year-old Jessica Floyd, who had known Jennifer since the third grade, said Thursday she couldn't stop crying after learning of her friend's death. She rode the same school bus as Jennifer and remembered seeing her on the bus Friday moments before Jennifer vanished.
"I just want to know what happened to her. I just hope whoever did it to her just gets locked away or killed for whatever happened to her," she said.
Floyd said she's not frightened for herself - her parents are making sure someone meets her at the bus every day - but she's sad thinking about the friend with whom she shared a tent on a Girl Scout campout.
"I just think it's really dumb that somebody should have to die so young and never have a chance to grow up or anything," she said through tears. "She's never going to have a chance to get a driver's license or get married or anything she might have wanted to do."
JENNIFER DIED OF HEAD WOUND
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Feb 27, 1993; Chuch Murphy; Victoria White; Bill Stevens; Sally Hicks; Wes Platt; Robert Rogers;
Jennifer Odom's body lay for an extended period of time in the stand of pine trees where she was found Thursday, and she died of a head wound, sheriff's officials said Friday.
Beyond that, detectives in Pasco and Hernando County have little information about the death of the 12-year-old Pasco girl who disappeared eight days ago as she walked the 200 yards from her school bus stop to her home in St. Joseph.
Instead, deputies and other law enforcement officers from Tampa to Citrus County spent Friday chasing down scores of leads, most of which related to blue pickup trucks. A blue pickup was seen near the bus stop where Jennifer was last seen on Feb. 19. It is the only lead detectives have disclosed about who might have abducted and killed Jennifer.
Late Friday, deputies in Citrus County were investigating a report from Carol Tucker, who was sitting in her mobile home near the Withlacoochee Forest, that a man in a blue pickup had slowly driven past her house and tried to entice her 2 1/2-year-old daughter to him. As soon as I opened the door, he was gone.
The woman told deputies the incident happened about 2 p.m., but she did not call deputies until a neighbor convinced her an hour later that the truck and the man might be related to Jennifer's case. The truck had a Pasco license tag with 71V as its last three digits.
Tucker said the driver was a white man in his late 20s or early 30s with slick black hair, sideburns that curled toward his cheeks and a long silver earring.
Hernando sheriff's Sgt. Frank Bierwiler would not say whether the "trauma to the head" was the result of a gunshot, some other wound or a beating. Later, Bierwiler appeared on television, saying she died of blunt trauma to the head, indicating she had been beaten.
Hernando Sheriff Thomas Mylander said the autopsy also indicated that Jennifer had been in a stand of pine trees near Spring Lake "for some time." Mylander attributed that belief to the level of decomposition in the body. He declined to release any other details.
The body, positively identified as Jennifer on Friday through fingerprints, was found face down and naked by a Hernando County couple searching for the girl Thursday afternoon.
After news reports of Jennifer's abduction and then her murder, detectives from Tampa to Inverness have been besieged by telephone calls about the case. Pasco Sheriff's Office spokesman Jon Powers said about 1,000 tips from the public had been received since a task force was formed early this week.
Jennifer's family spent Friday grieving in their home in the small community of St. Joseph, about 10 miles from where the body was found. On Wednesday, they had made an impassioned plea for help from the public to find Jennifer, but they have made no public appearance since the body was found.
The Rev. Paul Romfh, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Saint Joseph and a friend of Jennifer's family, said funeral services could not be scheduled until the medical examiner's office had released the body. Romfh visited the family on Friday.
"The family is trying to get on, trying to pick up the pieces," Romfh said. "They're still grieving. It's going to take awhile."
In the area where Jennifer's body was found, a bystander took a piece of crime-scene tape left behind as sheriff's deputies departed and tied it into a yellow bow around an oak tree. Later, on the spot where Jennifer's body was found, someone placed a cross and flowers.
OBITUARIES Series: OBITUARIES
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Mar 4, 1993;
ODOM, JENNIFER RENEE, 12, of St. Joseph, died in February 1993. She was a lifelong resident of St. Joseph. She was a student at Thomas E. Weightman Middle School and a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the Future Farmers of America and the American Waterskiers Association.
Survivors include her parents, Clark and Renee Converse; a sister, Jessica Odom, St. Joseph; her maternal grandparents, Jim and Margie Denney, St. Joseph; her paternal grandparents, Pete Odom, Dade City, and Pat Godbey, Ocala; four great-grandmothers; and several aunts and uncles. Coleman and Ferguson Funeral Home, Dade City.
JENNIFER'S LIFE TREASURES WILL GO WITH HER
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Mar 5, 1993; Sally Hicks
Jennifer Renee Odom's aunt and grandmother approached a table beside the slain girl's casket and placed a basket on it, a last gift to the girl whose life will never reach beyond the seventh grade.
On one side, the table held the treasures and trinkets from Jennifer's life: a "best friend" charm on a gold chain, a doll in a lace-trimmed dress, a troll with orange hair, a pair of earrings in the shape of bare feet, a satin jacket from Weightman Middle School and the basket with her name painted in blue.
"She's going to take those with her . . . things that she liked," explained Jennifer's mother, Renee Converse. She greeted the hundreds of friends and family who came to the funeral home visitation Thursday afternoon, exactly one week after her 12-year-old daughter's body was found on a horseback riding trail in Hernando County.
On the other side of the casket sat a framed photograph of Jennifer, the picture now so familiar to people across the Tampa Bay area who have been gripped by the story of the 12-year-old abducted from her bus stop and murdered two weeks ago. The killer has not be found.
HUNDREDS OF MOURNERS GATHER TO SAY, `OH, JENNY, GOODBYE'
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg; Mar 6, 1993; Sally Hicks;
It was a day of clear, cool sunshine that dappled orange groves and glinted on cattle ponds. It was a day when a 12-year-old girl should have been sitting in class, waiting to get outside, looking forward to the weekend, laughing with friends.
It was the day to bury Jennifer Renee Odom.
About 800 mourners turned out for the 10 a.m. funeral Mass on Friday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in St. Joseph, the small, rural east Pasco community where the popular seventh-grader was kidnapped two weeks ago. Her killer has not been caught.
The small church where Jennifer received her first Communion quickly filled up, and hundreds of people outside listened to the service on loudspeakers. Television and still cameras recorded the event for the thousands of people throughout Tampa Bay who followed the story of Jennifer's disappearance and killing.
Inside, the Rev. Paul Romfh urged the somber crowd to remember the girl's life, not her death.
"We tell Jennifer's story," he said.
"She had a devastating smile," he said, urging them to remember the happy girl who played the clarinet and was an honor student and a champion barefoot waterskier.
Jennifer's parents, Clark and Renee Converse, sat in the front pew during the Mass with Jennifer's younger sister, Jessica, and other family members, weeping occasionally and mouthing the familiar words of the responses. Jennifer's casket, covered with a white cloth, sat beside them in the aisle.
Romfh asked the grieving community to keep its faith amid the anger and sorrow.
"If we're honest, we have to admit we're here today with a question. The question is, `Why? Why? Why did God allow this to happen?' Even as we ask, we know we will not receive an answer."
But, he said, "No matter how sad and horrible things may be, Jennifer will be there to welcome us when our time comes."
After the hourlong service, people streamed out of the church, most walking the quarter-mile to the small cemetery surrounded by orange groves and shaded by evergreens. Crowds of people massed at the tent-covered grave, standing among dozens of wreaths and flower arrangements.
The day flashed alternately bright and cloudy as Romfh placed a small cross on the coffin and prayed, his words punctuated by the moaning of a small knot of teenage girls who stood nearby, some holding red carnations.
Mrs. Converse grimaced with sorrow as Romfh recited the Lord's Prayer and then took the cross and handed it to her.
Slowly Jennifer's friends, neighbors, family, teachers and classmates filed past the light-brown casket, many laying a single carnation or rose on top. Someone tied onto the casket a red, heart-shaped balloon with the words "I love you," which bobbed in the wind. Others simply touched the coffin in a last gesture of farewell. Mothers led away their weeping sons and daughters, arms around the youngsters as tears streamed down the cheeks of parent and child.
One girl sobbed aloud: "Oh, Jenny, goodbye."
Events
| Birth | August 25, 1980 | ||||
| Death | February 19, 1993 | St. Joseph, FL | |||
| Burial | Sacred Heart Cemetery |
Families
| Father | Sidney Pete Odom Jr. |
| Mother | Renee Anne Denney |
| Sibling | Jessica Anne Odom Converse |