Tina Strader had a special way of letting her husband, Gerald, know she was safe, until the day it raised the alarm because she wasn’t. What happened to the loving wife still haunts each night
After meeting through their work at a processing plant, Tina Strader and her husband, Gerald, had a whirlwind relationship. They felt such love for each other that they married just four months after their first date.
Tina, 46, had four children from a previous relationship and two grandchildren that she adored. She loved to dance and bake and was known affectionately by many as “Tiny Tina”.
In 2019, she and Gerald, 53, moved to Florida, and Tina got a job as housekeeping manager at the Rodeway Inn in Venice, an hour away from Fort Myers.
She and Gerald were able to live on site in a corner suite of the motel. Tina’s friendly personality made her popular with the guests, and they often returned because of how well she’d looked after them.
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Then Gerald’s health swiftly declined, and life became more challenging for the couple. He was struck down by an aggressive autoimmune disease, and he lost the full use of his legs.
After a lengthy stay in hospital, Gerald was left in a wheelchair and Tina became his primary carer. Gerald could no longer work as a delivery driver, so Tina was their main earner. Each morning, she would help her husband get out of bed, prepare his medications and breakfast, then go to work cleaning the rooms.
On 20 April 2021, Tina headed to work as usual. She and Gerald had set up a simple safety protocol. When Tina entered a room for cleaning, she would send a text to Gerald to let him know when she entered the room and when she’d moved onto the next. That way, Gerald could look out for his wife, who was often working solo.
Horrific discovery
At 8.49am, Tina messaged to say that she had gone into room 205. As time passed, Gerald was concerned when Tina didn’t text to say she had started on a different room.
Usually, if the room needed extra work, she would let Gerald know or even ask for help. Gerald messaged his wife two more times, but she still didn’t reply.
After making some enquiries with other staff members, he headed to room 205, where the door was shut. It would usually be open if she was still cleaning so he assumed Tina had moved on.
But when he couldn’t find her in other rooms, Gerald went back to room 205 at around 10.10am and opened the door.
He was horrified to find blood on the mattress, then he discovered Tina had been brutally attacked.
She had been shoved in a wardrobe with a washcloth stuffed down her throat. She had been beaten and wasn’t breathing.
There were defensive wounds where Tina had bravely tried to fight back.
Gerald yelled for help and pulled the cloth from his wife’s mouth, desperately trying to save her life. A 911 operator talked him through CPR until paramedics arrived. Tina was rushed to the hospital, but tragically, she died a few hours later.
At around the same time that 911 was called for Tina, there were several other 911 calls made that reported a half-naked man behaving aggressively two miles away from the crime scene on a street corner.
It took five officers to subdue and detain him. It turned out to be Stephen Havrilka.
He had been staying in room 209 at the Rodeway Inn for nearly a week and he had a shocking criminal record that had seen him arrested 36 times and go to prison four times.
His offences included domestic violence, burglary, drug-related crimes and trespassing.
Havrilka, 30, even had links to neo-Nazi groups.
Surveillance footage revealed that a minute after Tina had entered room 205, a man with distinctive tattoos had followed her in. It was Havrilka. Just 14 minutes later, he came out of the room carrying a towel and his shoes. The attack had been instant and ferocious.
Investigators determined that Havrilka could have been watching Tina in the lead-up to the killing and struck that day.
There was no motive to the crime – he was just an incredibly violent man – and Tina had been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Gerald was left utterly heartbroken and haunted by finding his wife.
At first, Havrilka was found incompetent to stand trial, but then, when he was judged able to, he pleaded not guilty.
He further proved how much of a danger he was to society when he got into a fight with another inmate in April 2024 at the Sarasota County Jail.
He used a sink tap stem as a weapon in yet another shockingly violent attack.
Family’s heartache
In February this year, Havrilka finally pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
The court heard how he had initially attempted to strangle Tina with his hands and then with a lanyard she had around
her neck. When that didn’t work, he strangled her again and stuffed the washcloth into her throat.
A statement from Tina’s four children and grandchildren was read out in court.
It said, “The last thing my mother tasted was cotton. It was a dry towel that was shoved in her mouth, down her throat, and which ultimately led to her death.”
The emotional statement also spoke of all the things the family, and Tina, would miss out on in the future. “Our mother will never be at our weddings. She will never be able to meet her grandchildren, kiss their heads, tell them stories and fond memories she used to share about being pregnant with us.”
It added, “My mother spent most of her life fighting systems of poverty. She spent most of her life fighting in general. And in her very last moments, she fought Stephen Matthew Havrilka, for her life.”
Havrilka was sentenced to life in prison. He also received another life sentence for the prison assault – the charge was aggravated battery of a person with a deadly weapon. The two sentences will be served concurrently.
Gerald and Tina had spent their marriage trying to keep each other safe but nothing could have saved Tina that day. In just 14 minutes, her life was brutally taken by one of the very hotel guests she so cheerfully cared for.
