Mexico News

GRUESOME scenes became the norm for veteran detective Todd Hand during his three-decade career, but little has made his stomach churn as much as what he found in killer Jonathan Lawrence’s freezer.

He told The Sun how he’ll never forget staring into the eyes of the cannibal killer, who brutally murdered teenager Jennifer Robinson in 1998.

Having helped find hundreds of dead bodies in his time as a detective in Florida, Hand has come face-to-face with countless murderers.

But he says the brutal killing of Jennifer in Santa Rose County, 27 years ago, was one of the most ‘grisly’ after finding her calf muscle inside Lawrence’s freezer at his home.

Chillingly, when asked why he’d kept the body part, he told the cops: “I planned on eating it.”

Lawrence got his 18-year-old victim drunk before shooting her dead and mutilating her body with his twisted accomplice, Jeremiah Rodgers.

Rodgers had been on a date with Robinson before luring her to Lawrence’s house.

After the killing, the depraved duo took turns posing with the victim’s body for Polaroid photos, and it later emerged that Lawrence had written a sick ‘to-do list’ for Jennifer’s murder.

The list included notes such as “get her very drunk”, “rape her” and “bring the .380” – the gun which was used to kill the victim.

When she failed to return home, her panicked mother called the police, and Detective Todd Hand was sent to investigate.

Todd says: “As soon as I got that call, I went over to Lawrence’s house.

“I found Lawrence there, and he told me Rodgers was there, and he had previously left.

“So I got on my radio and issued a call for Rodgers, because I thought these two guys had something to do with this girl not showing up. 

“I was pretty sure they had killed her or at least kidnapped her somewhere.”

Todd explained that after arresting Lawrence and interrogating him at the police station, Lawrence caved and admitted his atrocious crime.

Rodgers was also arrested a day later, having fled to a different county.

He added: “That morning after sunrise, we went out and found her.

“When we found her, we realised what he had said was true.”

The confession led Todd to Jennifer’s body, buried in a shallow grave, shockingly with her calf muscle missing, and her forehead peeled open.

I asked him why and he said ‘I took it [calf muscle] out’. So I asked what he planned on doing with it, and he said ‘I planned on eating it’

Todd recalls: “Lawrence confessed to removing the calf muscle from his female victim. 

“We had a search warrant, and I saw it was removed from the victim’s calf, then shortly after, a day later, we found the calf muscle in the freezer at his house.

“We asked [about the forehead injury] and both said Lawrence performed that operation, trying to look for the projectile, the actual projectile that came from the round of ammunition that went into her head.”

When Todd probed Lawrence on why he removed the calf muscle from the victim’s leg, he gave a chilling answer.

Todd says: “I asked him why, and he said ‘I took it out’. So I asked what he planned on doing with it, and he said ‘I planned on eating it.

“He told me it was in a freezer at the house. So we got a search warrant and found it. 

“I was the one who found it in a freezer. We went in, opened the freezer, and looked through; it was frozen in a container. 

“It looked like a calf muscle. I hunt, so I know what that kind of stuff looks like, and it just looked like a muscle.

“That was one of the most grisly things I’ve come across.”

Murder ‘obsessed’ duo

Accomplice Rodgers was described as “psychologically damaged” by the age of five with illnesses that “manifested in psychotic symptoms”, by the Florida Supreme Court (FSC).

As his condition began to deteriorate, he began to associate with Lawrence, who was also described by the FSC as “obsessed with killing”.

Together, they went on a sickening two-month killing spree that included shooting Leighton Smitherman through his living room window as he watched TV.

Lawrence was unknown to Smitherman, who survived the attack on March 29, 1998.

They also killed Justin Livingston, 21, Lawrence’s mentally disabled cousin, with Todd believing he may have been buried alive by the sick pair.

He added: “We were wondering if Livingston could have been buried alive. 

“He was stabbed numerous times. He died a long and painful death, according to the medical examiner’s office. 

“Both of them stabbed him numerous times with a pretty big knife at night on a helicopter practice landing field that was US government private property.

“They snuck in and were out there getting high and then killed him and stabbed him.

“They pulled him from there through the fence and put him in the back of a pick-up truck owned by Lawrence, and then they drove him up to where they buried him in a wooded area.

“I had no evidence he was buried alive, but he could have been still alive. He wasn’t conscious, put it that way.”

Together, Lawrence and Rodgers were convicted of all three crimes – and both were put on death row, where they remain.

Hand says Lawrence used Rodgers as a way of improving his dating life, but together they formed a murderous duo.

He added: “Rodgers was charismatic, a pretty good-looking guy back in the days I remember him. 

“He was a short, Charles Manson-looking kind of guy.

“He had a pretty good way with women, and he was socially intelligent, but Lawrence was exactly the opposite; he was socially un-evolved. I don’t believe he ever had a girlfriend. 

“Lawrence was smart enough to know that Rodgers was his possible ticket to a woman, through him. 

“It was a symbiotic relationship between Lawrence and Rodgers. Lawrence was pretty smart, intelligence-wise, but socially inept. They used each other. 

“Lawrence had a job, a place to live; Rodgers had no job or place to live, sponged off a girl he was shacked up with. No money and no future. 

“Lawrence had a family, which supported him; Rodgers had no family. His mother had committed suicide when he was young, and his father didn’t want anything to do with him because he knew he was a criminal.”

‘I’m not intimidated’

Although often faced with grisly scenes and coming up close to dangerous killers, Hand said he has never felt unsafe.

But he admitted he faced devastating situations – like his friend being shot dead on the job.

He added: “I’m not intimated and I never have been. The worst moment?

“My policing friend, Bo Harrison, was shot and killed, I wasn’t there, that was the worst moment. 

“He was working and sitting in his police car.

“Someone snuck up behind the police vehicle and shot through the back window and killed him as he sat in the driver’s seat. We were good friends.”

Despite what Hand has faced, he hasn’t been deterred from his work as a detective – and continues to look into a catalogue of cases.