More than two decades after Theresa Ann Green was found dead in the trunk of her own car, an Orange County jury has recommended that her killer, 59-year-old DeMorris Andy Hunter, be sentenced to death.
State Attorney Bill Gladson announced the recommendation on Tuesday following a high-stakes trial in the courtroom of Judge Lisa T. Munyon. The decision comes on the heels of a guilty verdict secured last week by prosecutors Richard Buxman and Kenneth Nunnelley, ending a legal saga that began on a May night in 2002.
The case dates back to May 26, 2002, when Hunter and Green attended a party at an Orlando apartment complex. Witnesses reported seeing the pair leave the gathering together and tumble down a flight of stairs before entering Green’s apartment.
Later that night, Hunter approached a neighbor with a set of keys to a white van, asking the man to follow him while he moved Green’s car to a nearby parking lot.
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The investigation quickly turned grim. After Green was reported missing, Sanford Police discovered her car at a Walgreens. When officers opened the trunk, they found the 38-year-old woman’s body. The Medical Examiner’s Office later confirmed she had been strangled to death.
“These past two weeks have been grueling for the family and friends of the victim,” State Attorney Bill Gladson said. “Reliving the events that occurred on the night Green’s life was taken has been nothing short of tragic. I believe this is why the jurors have recommended the most appropriate punishment for the defendant, which is the death penalty.”
At the time investigators linked Hunter to the crime, he was already serving a 110-year sentence for a separate murder committed in Oakland, California.
The emotional weight of the 22-year wait for justice was clear in the testimony of Green’s son, Octavius Hayes, who was only 13 when his mother was killed.
“I was robbed of my mother’s presence, her support, and her irreplaceable love,” Hayes told the court. “While other children were leaning on their mothers for guidance, I was forced to navigate the most formative years of my life in the shadow of her absence. Every milestone I have reached since then has been bittersweet, marked by the hollowed space where she should have been standing.”
Hayes urged the court to acknowledge the “permanence of this loss” and the “exhaustion of a lifetime spent seeking justice.” Under Florida law, the jury’s recommendation will now go before Judge Munyon, who will make the final determination on Hunter’s sentence.
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