Spencer Sanders threw his wife against a wall, lifted her off the ground and then strangled her breathless, leaving marks on her neck that were warning-light red.
His intention was not to kill her, but to show that he could, court documents show.
Then came the day that he did.
On July 12, 2018 – six weeks after Spencer Sanders strangled his wife Blanka during an argument over cigarette money, was arrested and then bonded out of jail − she was found face down on the kitchen floor, covered in blood, a large knife by her side.
Sanders, according to Sarasota County court records, sexually assaulted his wife before fatally stabbing her 17 times.
He is serving a life sentence inside Hamilton Correctional Institute, insisting in an email to the Herald-Tribune that he was wrongly convicted.
The Sanders case fits a disturbing pattern. According to the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, a person who has been strangled in a domestic incident is 750 times more likely to be killed by the same perpetrator within a year.
Non-fatal strangulation − a third-degree felony − is also a crime the State Attorney’s Office, 12th Judicial Circuit, often does not prosecute. The Herald-Tribune spent months examining 440 probable cause affidavits between 2022 and April 2024, and of those cases charges were filed in only 16%.
Over the years, some of the most notorious killers in the Sarasota-Bradenton area have had strangulation charges dropped in their criminal pasts.
Based on information from law enforcement reports and court records in Sarasota and Manatee counties, here is a look at a few.
Javontee Brice
Brice had a non-fatal strangulation charge dropped in November 2023. Seven months later, in June 2024, he entered a Bradenton motel room and killed his mother, a cousin and the partner of an ex-girlfriend with a .38 revolver. Then he fled to Georgia and died in a shootout with police at the state line.
Benjamin Moulton
In 2011, Moulton strangled a prostitute, who was nine months pregnant, near an airport motel in Sarasota, leaving her for dead. She lived. Charges were declined. Ten days later he strangled a 29-year-old woman to death near the same spot. He eventually turned himself in − a decade later. He is serving 20 years in prison. His brother was arrested in 2013 for the non-fatal strangulation of his sister.
Darrell Mitchell
Mitchell is serving life in prison for strangling to death a woman in Bradenton in 2004. He hid her body in a storage container under a bed, then went to a Waffle House for coffee. Prior to that murder, Mitchell had served 12 years in a Kentucky prison for strangling a woman to death when he was 16 years old because he wanted her Ford Thunderbird.
Stephen Astbury
Astbury is serving a life sentence for the strangulation death of a homeless man in 2023. An accomplice sat on the victim’s legs while Astbury strangled the victim to death with a ligature and buried his body in a shallow grave in Bradenton. In 1994, Astbury strangled his sister to death in Fort Lauderdale and served 11 years in prison. When he got out, he moved to Manatee County and strangled his girlfriend. Strangulation charges were dropped in that case, though he did serve prison time for battery.
Thomas Matejcek
In 2020, Matejcek strangled his mother in Bradenton and said “I hope you die” during an argument over pop singer Taylor Swift, his imagined girlfriend. He pleaded no contest to a lesser charge and was placed on probation. In 2023, he was arrested for battery after assaulting his mother and strangling and punching her boyfriend. Declared mentally incompetent to stand trial in the case, he was placed in the care of Centerstone Behavioral Hospital and Addiction Center, a mental health facility in Bradenton. Centerstone somehow lost track of him and he wound up killing his mother and her boyfriend. The State Attorney’s Office is now seeking the death penalty in his case, while the families of the victims have filed a lawsuit against Centerstone.
Tyrone Burns
In 2009, Tyrone Burns was arrested for strangling his girlfriend in Manatee County. The case was dropped. In 2016, he was arrested for armed robbery in Palmetto. In April 2018, he was declared incompetent to stand trial in the case and was placed in the care of Centerstone. The facility allowed him to live with his father in Lakeland. Unbeknownst to Centerstone, he went to Georgia, where strangled his girlfriend before murdering a 31-year-old single mother and manager of a men’s clothing store. Burns is now serving life in prison, while Centerstone lost a $6 million lawsuit filed by the murder victim’s mother.
William Devonshire
In 2022, the Sarasota Police Department held a press conference announcing the arrest of Devonshire for the strangulation death of a 48-year year woman. He was also named as “strong suspect” in the murder of another woman. Not mentioned by the SPD was that the State Attorney’s Office had declined a domestic strangulation case against Devonshire in 2016. As he was strangling the victim, he allegedly said, “I’m gonna kill you just like I killed him.” That was a reference to a 2003 murder in Delaware for which Devonshire was convicted. Devonshire had a seizure and died in Sarasota County Jail.
Stephen Havrilka
After Havrilka beat to death a Venice motel housekeeper and left her body in a closet for her disabled husband to find in 2021, Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman said, “This is one of the most egregious recent crimes we have seen in Sarasota County. He is an animal.” In 2011, Havrilka served 11 months in prison for strangling his girlfriend. She could hear her neck crack as he said, “I’ll kill you bitch.” He also strangled two cellmates in jail. He is serving a life sentence in prison.
Dorian Brooks
On April 4, 2023, Brooks allegedly strangled his girlfriend while threating to kill her in Bradenton. At the time, he was wanted for murder in a different case. Four days after the strangulation, the victim was shot, and Brooks was named the suspect. In May 2023, Brooks was taken into custody and charged with murder after an eight-hour standoff with a SWAT team. He was charged in the strangulation case two months later. He is currently awaiting trial.
Orestes Figueredo-Ortega
Figueredo-Ortega was arrested in Manatee County for strangling his wife in August 2020. The State Attorney’s Office had not made a filing decision before he murdered his wife a month later. He stabbed her five times in front of a toddler and left the child with her body while he drove to Miami. Much like the Sanders and Brooks cases, strangulation charges were filed two weeks after his murder arrest. He was sentenced to 18 months in the strangulation case and life in prison for the murder.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota-Manatee killers have history of dropped strangulation charges by state attorney
Reporting by Chris Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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