Sarah Michelle Lunde, 13, was last seen after coming home from a church event.
Sex offender charged with death of 13-year-old Ruskin girl
By Vickie Chachere
Associated Press Writer
Posted April 17 2005, 2:41 PM EDT
RUSKIN -- A registered sex offender has confessed to killing a 13-year-old girl by breaking into her house and choking her to death, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said Sunday.
David Onstott, 36, was charged with first-degree murder in Sarah Lunde's death after confessing Saturday, Gee told reporters. He had once dated the girl's mother and unexpectedly showed up at the family's trailer home hours after she disappeared April 9. David Lee Onstott, 36, appears Thursday at the Hillsborough County Courthouse. After an arrest Tuesday in an unrelated incident, he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Onstott confessed late Saturday to choking to death Sarah Michelle Lunde, 13, of Ruskin a week ago and was charged with 1st-degree murder.
(VICTOR JUNCO/TAMPA TRIBUNE)
April 18, 2005
David Onstott, 36, was charged with first-degree murder in Sarah Lunde's death after confessing Saturday, Gee told reporters. He had once dated the girl's mother and unexpectedly showed up at the family's trailer home hours after she disappeared April 9.
Sarah let Onstott into the house when he came looking for her mother, Kelly May Lunde, around midnight April 9, Gee said. He got into a fight with Sarah, put her into a choke hold and killed her, Gee said.
Onstott had been previously convicted of a rape, but his father, David Onstott Sr., has said his son wouldn't hurt the girl. The younger Onstott has been held without bail in the Hillsborough County Jail since Tuesday on unrelated charges. It was unclear Sunday if he had hired a lawyer.
Investigators found Sarah's partially clothed body in an abandoned fish pond Saturday. Gee said Onstott ``went to great effort to keep her body from being discovered.''
Sarah's 17-year-old brother came home before dawn on April 10 to find the front door wide open and his sister gone. He told detectives that Onstott came by shortly after looking for his mother, and took a half-empty beer bottle before leaving.
Both Sarah's brother and mother initially assumed Sarah had gone to a friend's house. She wasn't reported missing until Monday.
Before Gee announced the charges against Onstott, her relatives and her church ``family'' turned out in droves to tearfully mourn the loss of the girl who'd found a safe haven at First Apostolic Church. Sarah almost never missed Sunday morning services at her beloved church.
Her young friends dropped to their knees and wept while her mother, siblings and a host of other relatives came to the church to support each other.
Sarah's mother, Kelly May Lunde, was too shaken to talk, but her brother Larry May said: ``It's devastating, it's just unbelievable.''
``Everybody has things they wished they'd done -- spending more time with their children or keeping in closer contact,'' May said.
Among the mourners were Mark Lunsford, whose daughter Jessica was found dead last month after she was kidnapped from their Citrus County home, and Roy Brown, whose daughter Amanda was murdered in 1997 by convicted child molester Willie Crain.
Both men had lentn the headquarters for search efforts as hundreds of deputies and volunteers walked the rugged countryside looking for her or clues to her disappearance.
Searching for Sarah
``People asked me why did she come here, why did she spend her time here,'' said Matt Fontana, the youth minister at the church. ``Because she found love here...Now she's in heaven.''
The small church normally only draws about 50 congregants for Sunday services, but its pews were filled with more than double that Sunday. Sherry Cook, who with her husband founded the rural church more than two decades ago, said Sarah rarely missed church services. The girl's life seemed to revolve around the church's youth group, and she had spent her last day at a church function.
Sarah had started coming to the church three years ago on her own. No other members of her family attended with her, church leaders said. So determined was she to make it to church that Sarah would often call two or three families to arrange for a ride; they'd all show up to get her.
``Every Sunday we talked about who was going to pick up Sarah,'' Sherry Cook said. ``I can't believe we're not picking her up this morning.'' Fontana said other members of Sarah's youth group were taking the news of her death hard.
``I'm trying to stay composed so they stay composed,'' he said. ``They think only bad things happen to bad people.''
Standing at the church's altar and surveying the crowd that included about 20 of Sarah's relatives, Fontana told the mourners that more than anything Sarah had wanted to bring her friends and family to the church she so loved.
``It's ironic that not until she goes to be with the Lord that she got her wish,'' Fontana told the congregation.
[Times photo: Kinfay Moroti]
Sister Rebekah Lunde watches pallbearers carry the casket of Sarah Lunde out of the First Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ in Ruskin.
Sarah Lunde's families - from home, church, school - united to mourn the Ruskin 13-year-old.
