Crime News Florida

Florida Police Discover Body Believed to Be Missing Tampa Woman; Daughter Found Safe After Amber Alert

Florida Police Discover Body Believed to Be Missing Tampa Woman; Daughter Found Safe After Amber Alert

Based on reports from CBS News station WTSP, police in Florida say they found the body of a woman they think belongs to a woman and daughter who were taken earlier this week.

WTSP said that Sylvia Pagan, 34, was last seen in Tampa, Florida, on Sunday morning. A “Missing & Endangered Alert” was sent out by the Tampa Police Department for Pagan. It said that she was a 5’3″ lady who weighed about 155 pounds.

An Amber Alert was sent out by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement at 1 a.m. local time on Monday for Pagan’s 9-year-old daughter Briana.

A news report from Tampa police said they thought Briana “may have also been accompanied” by Pagan and Jovanni Caceres Steffani, 38. The police called Caceres Steffani a “person of interest.”

WTSP said that police think Steffani and Pagan stayed the night together at Pagan’s home in Tampa and then left the next morning. WTSP said that investigators found no proof that anyone had been hurt at the house, and there was no history of calls about domestic violence being made to the address.

Police say Steffani was found dead with a “self-inflicted gunshot wound” in Suwannee County, which is about 200 miles north of Tampa, around 2 a.m. local time, about an hour after the Amber Alert was sent out. WTSP said that deputies had talked to him at a hotel.

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WTSP reported that Briana was found safe at the scene. She had been let out of the hotel before Steffani’s death.

Even after the Amber Alert for Briana was taken down, Pagan was still not found. The police said they were “deeply concerned for her overall well-being.”

In their statement, the police did not say where they found the body they think is Pagan’s or what caused his death. A worker in the search for Pagan told WTSP that what they think is Pagan’s body was found in a ditch next to the road, with a blue child’s pool over it. The volunteer told WTSP that the body’s clothes and shoes fit what Pagan’s family had said about it.

WTSP said that the medical examiner’s office is trying to prove that the bodies are those of the right people and figure out how they died.

Police Chief Lee Bercaw of Tampa said in a statement to WTSP, “This is not what anyone wanted to happen.” “We send our condolences to Sylvia’s loved ones, but most importantly her daughter Briana during this unimaginable loss.”

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