WEEKI WACHEE, Fla. -- Investigators who dug up the bodies of four women around the trailer home of a convicted sex offender say details provided by an informant are proving so accurate they are certain of finding at least two more bodies.
A body found Tuesday in a shallow grave on the junk-littered 5-acre property of the Mansfield family was identified Wednesday as that of Sandra Jean Graham, a 21-year-old divorcee who disappeared from a lounge in West Tampa last April 26.
Searchers have found a total of four bodies on the tract south of Weeki Wachee, but Sheriff's Lt. John Whitman said Wednesday he believed his searchers would find at least two more bodies. 'Our information has been correct so far,' he said.
The last two bodies recovered were found within 3 feet of each other, and a police source said an informant had told officers last month that they would find two women buried close together.
The only other body identified thus far is that of Elaine Ziegler, a 15-year-old Warren, Ohio, girl who disappeared from a campgrounds near Brooksville in 1975.
A forensic dentist has been comparing dental records from women reported missing in Central Florida in the past several years in an attempt to identify the remaining two skeletons.
No charges have been filed in the case yet, and authorities said none would be until the cause of death of Miss Ziegler and Miss Graham is determined.
Deputies moved onto the Mansfield property March 16, armed with a search warrant that said they were looking for the body of Miss Ziegler.
Billy Mansfield Jr., 25-year-old son of the owner of the property, is the prime suspect in the case. He currently is in jail in Santa Cruz, Calif., awaiting trial on charges of raping and killing a 30-year-old woman whose body was found Dec. 7.
Police in Tampa said two weeks ago they had developed information that Billy Mansfield had been with Miss Graham the night she disappeared.
Mansfield's father, William, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in November for sex crimes involving young girls, but Sheriff's Maj. C.E. Crosby said he was not now a suspect in the deaths of the bodies recovered so far.
A second son, Gary Mansfield, 23, is also in jail in Santa Cruz, charged with being an accessory to the murder there, and a third son, Robby Mansfield, 18, was arrested Tuesday and jailed in Brooksville on a charge of burglary of a dwelling and grand theft of a rifle from a home near Brooksville.
Mansfield's wife and two other sons and her stepmother still reside in the unpainted modified trailer house on the property as the search for bodies continues.
The first body was found March 17, the second March 25, the third April 3 and the fourth Tuesday.
