3 arrested after landlord’s body found in secret room in Salt Lake City
David Stokoe’s body was found in a hidden crawl space in a Salt Lake City home.
3 arrested in Utah killing after landlord’s body found in secret roomLandlord and realtor David Stokoe’s body was discovered in a hidden crawl space in a Salt Lake City house.
KTVX
Three people have been arrested in the killing of a father of four whose body was found hidden in a secret room at a Salt Lake City house he was renting to the suspects, police said.
David Stokoe, 40, a popular real estate broker in the Salt Lake City area, was reported missing by his family on Friday, a day after he paid a visit to his tenants to evict them, according to police.
Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Greg Wilking said police went to the apartment Stokoe rented to the suspects after learning the landlord was never seen leaving on Thursday.
Wilking said officers on Friday discovered evidence at the apartment leading them to believe that someone was seriously injured there. While investigators were processing the scene, they discovered a secret door leading to a crawl space where Stokoe’s body was located, Wilking said.
He said Stokoe had been shot to death and police issued an all-points bulletin for his missing 2015 Cadillac Escalade.
On Saturday, police located the Escalade in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley City and detained two people found in the vehicle for questioning, Wilking said.
He said the two people discovered with the Escalade have not been linked to Stokoe’s slaying.
Wilking said investigators tracked down the suspects in the killing around 6 a.m. Saturday at an apartment in South Salt Lake. Manuel Velasquez, 31, was arrested on suspicion of murder, while two alleged accomplices, Diana Hernandez, 32, and Jessica Miller, 38, were arrested on suspicion of obstruction of justice.
Police said Hernandez and Miller, who also goes by the name Jessica Reese, allegedly helped clean up the murder scene and hide Stokoe’s body after Velasquez allegedly shot him during a fight.
It was not clear Monday if the suspects had retained legal representation.
Stokoe’s family, meanwhile, said their hearts were “broken over the loss of David.”
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“This situation is tragic beyond words, but we are remembering Dave the way he deserves to be remembered, as a hero and champion,” they said in a statement.
“We know we will see him again someday, and that families are forever,” the statement reads. “We are choosing to focus on the love we feel from everyone and the love we feel for Dave, rather than resentment surrounding the circumstances of his death. He’s cheering for us, watching over us, and wants us to love life and love each other.”
In an interview with ABC affiliate station KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City, Neil Stokoe described his brother David as his “hero.”
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“I idolized Dave, everything he did,” said Neil Stokoe, adding that he and his brother are among six children in their family. “He was a very charismatic individual and just loved people. Dave was a warrior. Dave was a leader.”
He said their older brother, Steve Stokoe, killed himself when he and David Stokoe were young and that David took the initiative to turn the tragedy into something positive to help others coping with depression.
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“I look at how he handled that trial and challenge,” Neil Stokoe said of David. “He was really, really tight with Steve and for him, he worked through it and then turned it into something to where he would go out to high schools and talk about suicide prevention and tell his story.”
Neil Stokoe said he hopes to follow his brother’s example and turn his murder into something positive.
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“Knowing Dave, he would take this opportunity and not see it as a tragedy,” the brother said. “He would look at it as an opportunity to remind people to make time for the things and people that mattered.”
Tenant tricked into cleaning up crime scene from 2021 landlord murder speaks out
By Gabby Hart
Published August 23, 2023 10:02pm CDT
Tenant tricked into cleaning crime scene
FOX 26 Reporter Gabby Hart spoke with the tenant about what she found and discovered.
HOUSTON – In July 2021, Tabatha Pope says 43-year-old Pamela Ann Merritt rented out a unit to her that was inside a home located at 605 West Clay Street in Houston.
Pope claims Pamela told her the rent would be lowered if she cleaned the second and third floors of the home. All Pope knew at the time was that the owner of the home 78-year-old Colin Kerdachi, hadn’t been seen since February 15, 2021.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Houston crime: Woman arrested after skeletal remains were found on West Clay Street
“Very suspicious, because of the way their stories kept changing saying he was dead, or missing, or went back to Africa,” Pope said.
When Pope started cleaning the second floor, she found bins filled with blood hidden in a crawl space.
“It smelled like death,” Pope recalled.
When she asked what it was, she claims Merrit told her it was from rotten meat that went bad during the 2021 freeze. So, Pope continued cleaning and disposing of those containers. But when she made it to the third floor where Kerdachi lived prior to his disappearance, she discovered evidence that she couldn’t ignore.
“There were blood splatters on the wall. There was blood on the floor, and on his bed, there was a big spot of blood,” Pope explained.
She made that discovery on October 2, 2021, and Pope called Houston police. She says officers came out, took pictures, and then left.
“Basically, they said no body, no crime,” she said.
However, on December 6, two months later, Pope found a body. The skeletal remains she found under the back stairs of the home were identified as Kerdachi. He’d been stabbed to death, and Pope says Merrit led her right to his remains.
Courtesy of HPD : Pamela Ann Merritt
“I had mentioned that if Collin’s body was found it wouldn’t be foreclosure, it would go to probate and buy us more time in the house. Two days later, they let slip something about a dog corpse under the stairs, and she asked me if I wanted to see it all peppy, and I was like sure, and she damn nearly skipped to the backyard. She stopped, and her face just went blank, and she said, ‘There it is’ and turned around and walked away, I knew immediately it was a body,” Pope explained.
Detectives and crime scene units investigated and removed the remains from the yard. No arrests were made.
Pope says Merrit continued to live in the home until the summer of 2022, more than one year after Kerdachi’s death.
Merrit wasn’t officially charged with murder until May 30, 2023, two years later. On August 18, officers finally took her into custody.
“It’s still shocking. But I’m glad I was a part of it, or else she probably would’ve gotten away with it. Because nobody else seemed to care, at all,” Pope said.
Merrit remains behind bars held on a $500,000 bond. She’s set to appear back in court on November 1.
Woman Murders Landlord and Takes His Place, Rents to Tenant, Police Allege In Horrifying Case
August 24, 2023, 3:30pm
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On February 15, 2021, a severe winter storm descended on Texas, one of several that battered the state and caused widespread power outages and hundreds of deaths that year. On or around that night, police allege, a resident of a Houston home murdered the landlord and took his place.
Pamela Ann Merritt lived at the house at 605 West Clay St. with her boyfriend Michael Brown, he told police according to court documents, together with their 78-year-old landlord Colin Kerdachi. After Kerdachi’s murder, his body was hidden under a set of stairs in the backyard, and Merritt and Brown immediately took over his duties renting the house to an unsuspecting tenant. Harris County records viewed by Motherboard even indicate that thousands of dollars in property taxes were paid in 2021 and 2022, after the landlord’s death.
The tenant, Tabatha Pope, was tricked into cleaning up evidence of the murder for a discount on her rent. Pope also discovered the former landlord’s body and called police.
Merritt was only just arrested last week, on August 18, more than two years after Kerdachi’s body was discovered. According to court records, Pope was still living at the residence as of March 10 of this year. Pope told a local Fox affiliate that Merritt continued to live in the house until the summer of 2022.
“It’s still shocking. But I’m glad I was a part of it, or else she probably would’ve gotten away with it. Because nobody else seemed to care, at all,” she told the outlet.
A listing for the Houston address on Apartments.com depicts a lovely multi-story home with flower bushes and a palm tree in the front yard. The listing advertises immediate move-in and references the deceased landlord as Colin and calls him a “helpful guy.” The description of the rental unit states:
“BEAUTIFUL BIG ONE BEDROOM, WASHER DRYER, DISHWASHER, 26 CUB FT FRIDGE, HARDWOODS, GAS STOVE, CENTRAL AIR & HEAT! CEILING FANS, CROWN MOLDING, BIG BEDROOM, WALK IN CLOSETS, DOUBLE DOORS FROM BEDROOM & LOUNGE ONTO BIG WOOD DECK, OPEN BAR KITCHEN, CAN TALK WHILE COOKING! JUST A REALLY GREAT PLACE! ANOTHER SMALLER ONE BEDROOM AT REAR, SAME AMENITIES, DECK,FENCED IN, WITH LOCKUP GATE! SMALLER, ABOUT 650 SQ FT, BUT NICE! PLEASE CALL COLIN [HELPFUL GUY] MOVE IN STRAIGHT AWAY!”
An affidavit filed by Houston homicide detective R. M. Watson details a disturbing and convoluted series of events leading to Merritt’s eventual arrest.
According to Watson, patrol officers responded to a burglary call at the residence on February 23, 2021. At that time, a resident identifying himself as Joe Guy said that he returned home for a trip to find Merritt in the residence, and that she would not leave. Merritt told Guy that she had murdered the landlord, he said, and he called police. A neighbor told officers that Kerdachi had not been seen since February 14. Merritt was taken to a hospital for psychological evaluation.
Police were called again to the house on October 2 of that year—this time by Pope, by now a tenant. Pope told officers that “she had recently moved into the residence and was paying rent to [Merritt] and Brown.” The pair offered her a discount on her rent if she agreed to clean the second and third stories, where she found “large pools and drops of blood,” specifically near the bathtub. She also found a knife in the mailbox and a “bin with blood in it” in a crawl space, as well as personal items that belonged to Kerdachi. She told police officers that Merritt and Brown said that the previous landlord—”Colin”—had died at the hospital after falling on a sharp object.
Pope called the police again months later, on December 6. This time, because she had found a body.
The tenant told police in a later interview that she became suspicious that Merritt and Brown had something to do with Kerdachi’s disappearance. She told the pair that they would have “more time in the house because the house would go to probate instead of foreclosure” if his body was discovered. Two days later on December 5, she said, Merritt and Brown began loudly discussing a dead dog under the backyard stairs. Merritt eventually led Pope to Kerdachi’s corpse and pointed at it—she was “peppy,” Pope told the local Fox affiliate—and both she and Brown maintained it was a dead dog. When she called police, Merritt and Brown went upstairs and began painting certain areas to hide blood stains, she said.
After exiting the house “during the early morning hours” on December 7, Merritt and Brown were brought in for questioning by police. Merritt repeated the story that Kerdachi had fallen on a sharp object in February and was taken to the hospital, and that he told her to “take care of the house.” She refused to acknowledge that Kerdachi was dead, saying he was probably alive in Africa, and that the corpse under the stairs was a dead dog. In his interview with police, Brown confirmed that he and Merritt lived at the residence with Kerdachi. He said that Merritt told him she wanted to “take over the house.” He had heard Kerdachi leaving the house “the night of the freeze” on February 15, according to the affidavit, and he said that he had seen him with a stab wound, and that Merritt had taken him to the hospital. He maintained that the corpse was a dog.
Both Merritt and Brown were released without charges.
Two years later, on March 10, 2023, the affidavit states, detective Watson visited the house and learned that Tabatha Pope was still living there. She told her story to the detective, and a one-time friend of Merritt’s also told Watson that she had confessed that Kerdachi’s body was under the stairs. Police then obtained Kerdachi’s phone records which showed that activity had ceased on the night of February 15, 2021, and bank records showed that his regular transactions stopped then as well. Kerdachi’s cell phone, which was discovered at the residence in December 2021, was found in a cabinet but was waterlogged, indicating that it had been exposed to the elements.
Brown was arrested on March 15, and he told police that Merritt had gone up alone to check on Kerdachi on that February night. He denied any knowledge of the murder or that he helped hide the body. On May 30, an arrest warrant was issued for Merritt.
Merritt was arrested at a motel on August 18, the Houston Chronicle reported. She will return to court on November 1 and has been assigned a lawyer due to indigency, according to court records.
