A man from Florida was given two life sentences and an additional 132.5 years for the killing of a motel housekeeper in Sarasota County in 2021. The charges also included battery and property damage.
The victim, Tina Strader, was discovered severely beaten and hidden in a closet at the Rodeway Inn where she was employed in 2021. Her husband, Gerald Strader, found her in this condition after she failed to respond to his messages and calls when she was cleaning a room at the motel.
Stephen Havrilka, aged 34, was arrested for Strader’s murder and later convicted, according to the Sarasota Herald Tribune. The sentencing was presided over by Sarasota Circuit Court Judge Dana Moss, who imposed two life sentences on Havrilka – one for the murder and another for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon for an incident that occurred in jail in 2024.
Moss then handed the defendant five separate 26.5 years terms for two counts of battery by a detained person, two counts of property damage over $1,000, and one count of battery of a police officers. The two life terms are to be served concurrently with the 132.5 years to be added on as consecutive sentences.
Havrilka had been staying at the motel for several days prior to Strader’s murder, investigators said.
Assistant State Attorney Karen Fraivillig said that Havrilka first strangled Strader with his hands and her work lanyard, but when she regained consciousness stuffed a washcloth into her mouth.
“In this case, what I think is so appalling was it was a random killing,” Fraivillig said. “There was no relationship that existed between Tina Strader, the victim in this case, and the defendant.”
Havrilka was found incompetent to stand trial three times before an order restored his competency on November 22, 2023. His trial was initially set for February 2024 but was delayed several times.
In April 2024, before the trial could begin, Havrilka got into a fight with another inmate, using a sink faucet stem as a weapon.
Strader’s family did not attend the sentencing hearing, but Fraivillig read a statement from her children describing how she created handmade birthday cards.
“She’d use construction paper and build them into the kind that pop-up when you open them,” the letter states. “She used every color marker, and she brought so much color to the world.”
