TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — It took more than 30 years, but this week Hernando County authorities made an arrest for the 1993 murder or 12-year-old Jennifer Odom.
Jeffrey Crum Sr. has been charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery, the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office said.
Crum has been in prison since 2015 after being convicted of the rape of a Pasco teen in a case that had striking similarities to the Odom case.
“So, he quickly, quickly, almost instantaneously became our number one suspect in the Jennifer Odom case,” Sheriff Al Nienhuis said.
Authorities said his son, Jeffrey Crum II was arrested for a series of felonies and had to submit a DNA sample, and that sample led Pasco authorities to suspect Crum in the brutal beating and rape of a Pasco teen in 1992.
In that case, Crum abducted the teenager after she got off of a school bus, hit her in the head with a blunt object and then raped her in a vacant lot. The attack happened just a few months before Jennifer Odom was abducted and killed.
“The M.O.’s of both cases were almost identical with the exception that Jennifer was abducted and found six days later,” said Nienhuis.
Hernando authorities say they have long suspected Crum Sr. for the murder, but will not say what finally led to his arrest.
“I have confidence that we have the right person and the right aggravators in this particular case to treat it as a death penalty case,” said State Attorney Bill Gladsen.
