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Hernando Today

Suspect Named In Rutherford Murder

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By KYLE MARTIN

Published: February 15, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - BROOKSVILLE - A man known for his kind soul and generous nature was beaten about the head and strangled to death early Thursday morning.

Brooksville police say they know who did it.

Investigators are keeping mum about what led them from Robert Rutherford's bloody apartment to the arrest of 23-year-old Treva Anderson.

Part of that's because detectives have a few leads to track down before they officially close the case, Brooksville Police Chief George Turner said Friday.

Some answers will have to wait because Anderson requested a lawyer upon her arrest.

But Turner did provide a few more details in an interview Friday.

The relationship between Anderson and the 69-year-old victim remains unclear, but she was seen with him most of Wednesday at his apartment on S. Main Street.

Police say a weapon was used to beat Rutherford "multiple" times about the head. Preliminary autopsy results don't show how many times exactly. Turner wouldn't comment on the weapon or whether it was recovered.

The head trauma wasn't what killed him anyway, though it played a large part. A medical examiner's early opinion is that strangulation was the cause of death.

An anonymous call about an injured person was what originally led police to Rutherford's doorstep at the Lemontree Apartments. Police know who placed that call, and it wasn't the suspect.

Turner didn't know if there would be further arrests.

A neighbor told a reporter she heard two shots about the time that Rutherford was found dead. Police seized a pair of handguns and a rifle from the victim's apartment, but there was no indication they had been fired.

Turner said they weren't loaded either, but there was ammunition "readily available."

Anderson was the original "person of interest" and investigators picked her up off the streets of Brooksville about 5 p.m. Thursday on an outstanding warrant for violation of probation.

She was subsequently charged with murder and aggravated abuse of the elderly.

Her short criminal record has no violent crimes.

A phone message left at her home, 3582 Dow Lane, in Spring Hill, was not returned.

On Friday, Rutherford's oldest daughter said she suspected someone else had a hand in the murder of her father.

The only way Bobbi-Jo Pellizzari can imagine someone overwhelming her father was if he was caught off guard.

"He was very, very strong," she said.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

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