The mystery behind the grisly killing of Pamela Kay Wittman almost 44 years ago has finally been solved, according to a breakthrough report from the Volusia Sheriff’s Office. A new analysis claims she was murdered by Gerald Stano, a convicted serial killer who was executed in 1998.
The new information provides long-awaited closure into a murder that’s troubled the community for decades.
ID’ing the Victim
Wittman’s body was discovered off of I-95 northbound in Port Orange on November 5th, 1980. Initially an unidentified Jane Doe, it took the work of FHD Forensics with funding from the nonprofit Genealogy for Justice to produce a positive identification of who she was.
Following the confirmation that it was indeed Wittman whose remains had been found over decades ago, law enforcement gave the body to her sister after a long and emotional meeting with the detectives who gave her the news. Witt man was 25 years old at the time of her death, and would be about 68 if she were still alive today.
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Serial Killer Implicated
Gerald Stano was a serial killer who was convicted in 1980 of the murders of several Florida women dating back to 1973. Several were in Volusia County: victims of Stano’s killings were found in Ormond Beach, Port Orange, New Smyrna Beach, Daytona Beach, and Holly Hill among other locations around the state.
He was sentenced to death on nine convictions of first degree murder, after having confessed to them while he was in custody. Among the murders he claimed responsibility for was Wittman’s, but the case could not be conclusively closed until this year. On March 23rd, 1998, Stano was executed in Florida State Prison, where he’d been held alongside another notorious serial killer: Ted Bundy.