A 19-year-old man is accused of shooting and killing his 16-year-old girlfriend during an argument early Sunday, and then dumping her body on the side of a road near her family’s Spring Hill apartment, deputies said.
Robert Anthony Timmons was arrested early Monday on a murder charge in connection with the shooting of Victoria Perez, whose family reported her missing a day earlier, Pasco Sheriff Jeff Harrington said during a news conference Monday afternoon.
The sheriff’s office on Sunday morning released a photo of Perez and asked for the public’s assistance in finding her after her family reported her missing. The notice said she was last seen near Chiloe Street. That street is in the Magnolia at Spring Hill complex, located between Crela Drive and Shady Hills Road.
About 3 p.m. Sunday, the sheriff’s office announced it was conducting a death investigation on Crela Drive.
“Unfortunately, those two cases came together on the side of the road,” Harrington said Monday.
Perez’s family reported her missing about 7 a.m. Sunday.
A few hours later, about 11:20, the agency received a call about a body on the side of the road in the 15600 block of Crela Drive, not far from where the road dead-ends at the Suncoast Parkway. Deputies found the body lying about 15 feet off the roadway.
Within a few hours, detectives confirmed the body was that of Perez. Her family identified Timmons as a person detectives should talk to, Harrington said.
“There were concerns about the nature of the relationship that he and this young woman had,“ Harrington said. ”Family members had characterized it as tumultuous (and) toxic.”
Investigators obtained surveillance video showing Perez getting into a car associated with Timmons about 1:15 a.m. Sunday in her family’s apartment complex.
Timmons initially lied to detectives, telling them he didn’t know much about Perez’s whereabouts, Harrington said. But after more questioning, Timmons said he picked up Perez at her apartment, they got into an argument in the car and he shot her in the head, according to Harrington.
“After he murdered this 16-year-old girl, he took her around the back of where this apartment complex was, and he callously dumped the body 15 feet off the road, and then he left,” Harrington said.
Timmons is suspected of tossing the gun into a nearby body of water. The sheriff’s office’s dive team was searching for it Monday.
Timmons was booked into the Pasco County Jail on a charge of first-degree premeditated murder and was being held Monday without bond.
The sheriff’s office asked anyone with information on the case to call its tips line at 800-706-2488 or go to pascosheriff.com/tips.
“We pray for the family in the memory of this young woman who was taken so callously, so viciously by this person,” Harrington said.
Harrington said Perez’s parents were “engaged” with her.
”They were trying to get help,” he said. “They were taking steps to try to insulate her from that type of relationship that she was in. But the best thing that any parent can do, as a parent of a young daughter myself — just communicate, be engaged, be caring, listen. Sometimes people … just want somebody to talk to and be there for them.”
He also urged anyone who needs help with domestic violence to take advantage of available resources.
One way to find help is by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE.
