Thursday, June 18, 2009

Mom found murder: 14-year-old girl and19-year-old lover arrested


By Amy Kniss

Tylar Witt, 14, and her boyfriend Steven Boston Colver, 19, were arrested in San Bruno, Wednesday morning. Police suspect the pair had been on the run since Friday, June 12, after stabbing Witt’s mother 47-year-old Joanne Witt to death in the El Dorado Hills home mother and daughter shared.

Authorities discovered Joanne Witt’s body Monday morning. Coworkers at the county's Department of Transportation reported her missing after she failed to show up for work; police found Joanne Witt stabbed to death when they went to check on her wellbeing, after receiving the missing person report. Coworkers told police, and attendance records at the department confirm, that Joanne Witt had not been to work since June 10.

Of the weapon used in the murder, El Dorado Hills Sheriff’s Captain Craig Therkildsen reported: "It was some kind of stabbing instrument, but we don't know what it was." Police have not yet recovered the weapon.

Investigators suspect that Joanne Witt’s murder occurred because she wanted to prevent Tylar, Joanne’s 14-year-old daughter, from continuing to date 19-year-old Colver. Sergeant Jim Byers, spokesman for the El Dorado Hills Sheriff’s Department, told reporters: "We do believe that the relationship between the daughter and the boyfriend may have led to this murder.”

San Bruno Police are not releasing details regarding the specifics of the pair’s arrest. Yet, mall employee, Jeysol Urbina, who said she witnessed the arrests, told ABC7 News, that police blocked off the parking lot between an AT&T store and a Red Lobster restaurant in the strip mall. She also said she saw a black jeep surrounded by police cars.

"There was a guy and a girl dressed in black like gothic,” she said. Urbina also told ABC7 News, that the pair got pulled out and searched, but admitted she had not witnessed this part of the incident herself.

On Friday night, the night police believe Joanne Witt was murdered, Tylar Witt and her boyfriend Steven Colver rented a room at the Holiday Inn on Van Ness and California, in San Francisco. Monday morning, the day Joanne Witt was found murdered, the San Francisco Department of Transportation impounded Clover’s car, from the 500 block of O’Farrell Street.

Exactly how or when the teens made their way from San Francisco to San Bruno, where they were arrested for Joanne Witt’s murder, remains unclear. Police officials from El Dorado Hills plan on picking up Tylar Witt and Steven Colver in the next few days. Until then both are being held in San Mateo County.

0 comments: