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Jennifer Odom disappeared 30 years ago
Jordan Bowen reports.
DADE CITY, Fla. - Sunday marked exactly 30 years since 12-year-old Jennifer Odom disappeared from her school bus stop in rural Pasco County. Her body was discovered days later in an abandoned orange grove in Hernando County, but her killer has yet to be caught.
The death of 12-year-old Jennifer Odom is still a mystery three decades later. Over the years her mother Renee Converse has pleaded with the public for answers.
"Please do the right thing. Do the right thing so we can have a resolution," Converse said at the time of her daughter's disappearance.
Image of Jennifer Odom courtesy of the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.
On February 19, 1993, Jennifer was last seen getting off the bus stop around 3 p.m. waving goodbye to her friends before beginning the short 200-yard walk to her home, but she never made it.
Children on the bus reported seeing a faded blue pickup truck slowly following her, but the driver and the truck were never identified. Her case gripped the community.
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"Anybody who lived here at the time, back in 1993 if you whisper her name in the store, if you mention it, people's heads turned," Hernando County Sheriff's Office Detective George Loydgren said.
Children on the school bus with Jennifer reported a blue pickup truck that appeared to be following her after she got off the bus.
Six days after her disappearance, a couple searching an abandoned orange grove in southeast Hernando County found her body, but the case grew cold.
Two years later on January 5, 1995, a couple hunting for scrap metal in a rural area of Hernando County discovered Jennifer's missing book bag and clarinet case which had fingerprints on it.
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"I believe that there's probably one person if not more that would know who is responsible for this," said Detective Loydgren stated in 2018.
Law enforcement searching for Jennifer Odom 30 years ago.
Loydgren believes that person could be a family member or ex-spouse either protecting the killer or too afraid to come forward.
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"I think the reason people don't want to get involved, they may not want to sit there and have to testify against that individual and what they had told them," Loydgren said.
Loydgren hopes advances in DNA technology will eventually help track down the killer.
Courtesy: Hernando County Sheriff's Office
"DNA is going to be a big part of Jennifer's case as it is with any of the old cases because items were collected. It's just now the technology has advanced," Loydgren said.
Anyone with information about Jennifer Odom's case is asked to call the Hernando County Sheriff's Office at (352) 754-6830.