BROOKSVILLE — George Loydgren’s work in law enforcement isn’t finished, and he wants that understood.
The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office detective spent the past decade chasing the man who abducted and killed 12-year-old Jennifer Odom in 1993. On Aug. 25 — what would have been Jennifer’s 46th birthday — a jury recommended that Jeffrey Crum be sentenced to death.
Then Loydgren’s wife made a suggestion.
“My wife said, ‘OK, you can retire now. You solved Jennifer’s case,’” Loydgren said. “I said, ‘Yeah, but I got a lot more cases to work on.’”
Loydgren and Sheriff Al Nienhuis discussed the verdict and the jury’s recommendation at a news conference Aug. 25 at Sheriff’s Office headquarters on Cortez Boulevard. Loydgren, who has spent 41 years in law enforcement, called it the most important case of his career.
Nienhuis said the case is in the court’s hands now, and a final decision should come within the next several weeks.
‘A good kid’
By all accounts, Nienhuis said, the girl from Dade City was “a good kid” who stayed out of trouble, loved water skiing and was well-liked at school.
“She was probably the daughter that any person would want to have,” he said.
On Feb. 19, 1993, Pasco County Sheriff Lee Cannon learned that Jennifer had vanished from her bus stop. The search that followed reached across central Florida, Nienhuis said, and seemed to sweep up anyone driving a blue truck.
Six days later, Hernando County Sheriff Tom Mylander got word that a couple scavenging for scrap metal had found her body.
“Over the next 33 years, I don’t think there is a law enforcement professional in the Tampa Bay area that hasn’t put some sort of effort into finding her killer, particularly for the first quarter of a century, at least,” Nienhuis said.
In 1995, her book bag and clarinet turned up near power lines along State Road 50, close to Oak Hill Hospital. The discovery renewed interest in the case.
About 12 years ago, Loydgren was assigned to cold cases. He is “the best of the best,” Nienhuis said.
The work is a balancing act. Both men noted that fresh cases arrive daily, and the needs of current victims and their families have to be weighed against those of relatives waiting decades for answers.
You don’t want those hot cases to go cold, too, Loydgren said.
The break came in 2015, when Pasco County investigators developed DNA in a similar case involving another of Crum’s victims. That evidence pointed to Crum and, in turn, back to Jennifer.
But the case against him in Jennifer’s killing was not built on forensics, Nienhuis said. It was built by pounding the pavement — running down tips, chasing leads and clearing the people others had named as suspects.
‘Blood, sweat and tears’
“I would say that I put the last decade of my blood, sweat and tears into working on Jennifer’s case,” Loydgren said. “I take it personal.”
Detectives and deputies in Pasco County did a substantial share of that work, Nienhuis said. When the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children digitized the file around 2015, he said, Loydgren was told it was the largest case the center had ever handled — 75,000 pieces of paper.
After talking with Crum, Loydgren said, he knew he had the right man, and Crum only looked better as a suspect from there. He said he believes Crum committed other sexual batteries. Whether he ever says more about Jennifer’s killing, or takes what he knows to the grave, remains to be seen.
Loydgren said he met Jennifer’s parents when he took over the case in 2014 and promised to do his best to get someone charged. He stayed in touch with them for the next 12 years.
“They’re such good people,” he said. The only way they know him, he said, is as “the guy that got Jenny’s killer.”
He said he hopes the family can put the case to rest now and find some peace.
“I’m glad I was there to help them,” he said.
‘If I was a bottle’
As the trial went on, Loydgren said, the anxiety settled in his chest.
“My chest was tight,” he said. “If I was a bottle and you shook it all up and popped the cork, I would have exploded all over.”
He cried when it was over, he said. A child’s life was taken and she is never coming back. He has children and grandchildren of his own.
Given enough time, Loydgren said, these cases can yield the answers families want.
“I bring justice to them and the victims,” he said.