[chris]

A Martin County judge adjudicated Air Force airman Steven Williams guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 35 years on September 30, 2016, after he led investigators to the partial remains of his ex-wife, Tricia Todd, in Florida's Hungryland Wildlife and Environmental Area.

Todd was a 30-year-old hospice nurse and Air Force veteran who lived in Hobe Sound, Martin County. Williams, also 30, was stationed in North Carolina. They shared a 2-year-old daughter, who is not named here. Williams was in Florida for a custody visit on April 27, 2016, and had the child overnight at the home where he was staying.

Todd went to that home that evening and was not seen again. She failed to collect her daughter from a babysitter the following morning, and her family reported her missing. The Martin County Sheriff's Office treated the disappearance as suspicious from the outset. Sheriff William Snyder later said investigators believed she had been strangled, citing the absence of blood evidence.

Todd's body was dismembered, placed in a container filled with acid and buried about three feet deep in the Hungryland Wildlife and Environmental Area, roughly 19 miles from her home. Pieces of a chainsaw, a battery-powered hand saw and a pair of pliers were recovered from a canal beside the burial site on about June 1, 2016. Investigators said Williams had bought two battery-powered saws online in late March 2016.

Detectives searched Todd's home and car, interviewed friends and family and reviewed surveillance footage. Several men in her life were looked at and cleared, among them a pastor and a man she had been seeing. Footage showed a figure near her home on the night she vanished. Attention settled on Williams, who had returned to North Carolina and wanted to move the daughter there.

Martin County Sheriff's Office detectives traveled to question Williams in May 2016, with Chief Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl taking part. Williams initially denied involvement, saying, "I never killed her. I would never do that to her." He then said he pushed Todd during an argument about money, causing her to fall and hit her head. He called it an accident and said he panicked, put her in her own car and drove to a remote area. He acknowledged having more than two hours to decide what to do with her body but did not describe the dismemberment or the acid.

Williams was arrested and charged with murder on May 24, 2016. On May 25, 2016, he pleaded no contest to second-degree murder under an agreement for a 35-year sentence in exchange for leading investigators to Todd's remains. He took them to the Hungryland site on May 26, 2016, where partial remains were recovered. The judge also imposed a five-year term on a count of child neglect for leaving the 2-year-old alone while he disposed of the body. Reporting differs on whether that term runs concurrently or consecutively. The Air Force declined to prosecute because the killing happened off base. No appeal has been reported. Williams remains in Florida state prison, where he lost 15 days of gain time after ink for tattooing was found in his prison work area.

The video is a police interview-room recording of about 353 minutes, posted here in six parts, followed by a second recording of about 134 minutes in three further parts. It shows the questioning itself without narration or a presenter, but covers only a portion of the multiple recorded sessions rather than the complete set of interviews. Prosecutors released it publicly in October 2016, after sentencing.

[chris]

Part 2 of 6 of the recording described above.

[chris]

Part 3 of 6 of the recording described above.

[chris]

Part 4 of 6 of the recording described above.

[chris]

Part 5 of 6 of the recording described above.

[chris]

Part 6 of 6 of the recording described above.

[chris]

Part 1 of 3 of the second recording described above, running about 134 minutes in total.

[chris]

Part 2 of 3 of the second recording described above.

[chris]

Part 3 of 3 of the second recording described above.