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Missing woman's fiance arrested
Carla Bayron reports
AUBURNDALE, Fla. - A missing Auburndale woman's fiancé is facing charges for stealing her money.
Tonya Whipp, 38, has been missing for almost a year now, and no one has been charged yet in her disappearance.
Seleena Mendoza hasn't stopped searching for her childhood friend who disappeared last May.
RELATED: Missing Auburndale woman’s boyfriend accused of accessing her financial accounts
"I would drive every single day from Lakeland to Winter Haven to pick my mom up and drive to Auburndale. We were searching door to door," said Mendoza. "I'm always putting her name out there. 'Have you seen this person? Here's a picture of my friend on my phone.'"
Whipp's fiancé, Russell Carroll, claimed he last saw or heard from her on May 26, 2023, when he returned home from work, and she was gone. But, it was one of her family members who reported her missing a month later.
PREVIOUS: Tonya Whipp's family pleads for answers seven months after Polk County woman's disappearance
The Auburndale Police Department arrested Carroll on Tuesday, May 14, and charged him with criminal use of personal identification information, a second-degree felony, and Grand Theft in the third-degree. Investigators claim he accessed Whipp's financial accounts and redirected thousands of dollars to himself multiple times after her disappearance.
Pictured (left to right): Russell Carroll and Tonya Whipp.
On August 29, for example, Whipp's account showed she electronically transferred $1,400 to Carroll. According to the affidavit, Carroll not once went to police to tell them the revelation that Whipp may still be alive, because she was sending him money.
In October, police executed a search warrant on Carroll's home based on probable cause Whipp was a victim of homicide. The affidavit states a forensic examination of his laptop led to the discovery of a photograph of a cell phone screen that had Whipp's online banking account's username and password.
READ: Where is Tonya Whipp? Investigators comb through evidence seized during search of boyfriend’s home
Speaking to FOX 13 outside his home back in October 2023, Carroll claimed he didn't know where Whipp was and didn't report her missing sooner, because she had "gone away before" and would come home eventually.
"People think I hurt her or did something. It's none of that. She just disappeared. I don't know," Carroll said during the interview.
He said he and Whipp knew each other for years before they became an official couple after he got out of prison in January 2023. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, he served 20 years for attempted first-degree murder.
MORE: Police search home of missing woman’s boyfriend who was in prison for attempted murder
Though he hasn't been charged in her disappearance, Mendoza hopes this latest development could lead to more answers.
"I'm kind of thankful where he's at right, because he doesn't have the opportunity to hurt someone else if he's hurt her, so they've got him for now," Mendoza said.
Carroll is being held on $35,000 bond. FOX 13 reached out to Auburndale police, but they don't have a comment at this time.
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