LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Police in Leesburg were searching for the body of a missing 84-year-old woman who they believe was strangled and left in her home for several days before two suspects dumped her body in the woods./p>
David Mariotti, 34, of Fruitland Park, and Tracie Jo Naffziger, 40, of Wildwood, were arrested and charged with killing Bernadine Montgomery, Leesburg police Lt. Joe Iozzi said.
"Unfortunately, there are people out there who will commit heinous crimes and should not be out on our streets, and these are two of them," Iozzi said.
Police responded to Montgomery’s Palmora Boulevard home on June 22 after the woman was reported missing.
When they searched her home, officers could not find Montgomery and discovered “indicators of foul play” inside residence, an arrest affidavit said.
Investigators were able to located Montgomery’s car parked next to Lake Harris, less than a mile from her home.
Dive crews searched the lake but did not find any trace of the missing woman.
Suspicious transactions on Montgomery’s credit cards between June 17 and 22 led police to Mariotti and Naffziger.
According to Naffziger’s arrest affidavit, she admitted to using Montgomery’s credit cards, driving her car and selling some of her property.
Naffziger told investigators that Mariotti killed Montgomery and the pair left her body the Palmora Boulevard home for several days, the affidavit said.
After about a week, Naffziger told officers that she and Mariotti went back to Montgomery’s home, loaded her body into her stolen car
and drove to the Marion-Putnam county line where they dumped the body in a wooded area along State Route 19, investigators said.
Montgomery’s body has not been found.
Mariotti and Naffziger were being held at the Lake County Detention Center on charges of second-degree murder.
Cox Media Group