Several people saw a Gulfport teenager being taken prisoner. Records say no one told the police.

st. Petersburg – At least six people saw the Miranda Corsett or knew that a 16-year-old Gulfport girl was being held and tortured the week before she was murdered against her will. No one told the police.

This reveals new details of the investigation so far, which has led to criminal charges against the two, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Pinellas County Court.

Stephen Gres and Michelle Brandes, 37, 35, were charged with first-degree murder last week. Prosecutors said they plan to seek the death penalty. Miranda’s body has not been found. Police say they believe her body likely was destroyed at an incinerator in Hillsboro County after being put in the Ruskin trash can.

The purpose of the affidavit, written by the St. Petersburg police detective, is to get the judge’s permission to search for Gres’ mother’s phone, but its 25 pages paint the most detailed portrait of the horrifying murder.

The torture took place in a quiet neighborhood featuring modest mid-century ranch homes and wide lawns spread out in front of the burgeoning oak and palm trees.

Will someone else be charged with witnessing Miranda’s light-character?

People saw prisoner teenagers

Two neighbors were watching the girl with thin, dark hair in her duplex. There, Gres said he frequently brought young and underprivileged women in the Ponce de Leon area of ​​St. Petersburg.

“This little bitch stole my ring and won’t return it,” Gres told his neighbor who saw Miranda. “That’s why I’ve knocked her ass down.”

Three, including Gres’ mother, later admitted to police that they sent pictures of the girl showing her nude, hurt and increasingly worsening physical condition.

His mother denied seeing the photos, according to the affidavit. She said he told her the girl was still at home and that she had stole the ring from him. In response, she said she could no longer talk to him.

“Good people don’t want to know what’s bad,” she told him, the affidavit states.

Efforts to reach Gres’ mother and other witnesses mentioned in the document failed on Friday. The attorneys listed for Gres and Brandes did not reply to a call for comment.

A spokesman for the St. Petersburg police said Friday that he could not say whether anyone else would be charged.

“The case is still open and there could be a much better (fees) going forward,” said Bruce Bartlett, a lawyer with Pinellas-Pasco State. Six days of torture and “calculated murders” became one of the most disturbing murders he had seen.

“That kind of people should be excluded from society,” Bartlett said. “They have the tools to do that, and that’s called the death penalty.”

Miranda has a one-year-old child and is now caring for her teenage grandmother, police said.

According to the affidavit, it began after police learned from men they learned from men they knew about the brand.

On Friday, Miranda’s grandmother, Rita Farnham, told the Tampa Bay Times that she was not ready to talk about the incident but later wrote in a text message, but Brandes told police about the obvious confession.

“Without him (he) we would never know what had happened to Miranda,” she wrote. “My family is very grateful to him.”

Detailed horror of the witness

One of the first detectives questioned was a woman who lived with Gres and Brandy in a first floor apartment on north of 27th Avenue. In her affidavit, she explains that she had previously been sexually involved with Gres. But now Gres and Brande were together. He wanted an “open relationship,” the woman said, but Brandes was jealous.

She described the situation in an unstable family where Gres frequently defeated and abused two women. She also said Gress killed the animals that had passed through Craigslist and disposed of them near the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

He brought other women who were homeless or addicted to drugs, she said. The woman began crying when the detective asked about the girl she had brought home on Valentine’s Day.

She spoke about Miranda. She said Gress met her through Grindr, a dating app that caters to the LGBTQ community. He brought her home, she said.

The next day, the woman said, Gress was furious. The ring that belonged to him was missing. He was sure Miranda had stole it.

Miranda was taken back to her apartment. Gres requested the ring, but Miranda didn’t turn it over.

A few days later, Brandes showed her the ring, claiming she had found it in Gres’s car, according to the affidavit. The woman said she believes the brand has the ring the whole time. She believed that she wanted Gres to dislike the girls.

The woman described the be-strike and torture of the week Gres and Brandes were given. It ended on Sunday night, February 23rd. The woman said Brandes wrapped the girl’s head in plastic. Gres told her not to cover her nose, but the brand did, the woman said. Miranda suffocated.

After she died, Gres carried her into a purple blanket to the trunk of his Honda Civic. The three of them later drove to Brandes’ mother’s house on Mallory Drive, Largo.

Late the next morning, Gres and Brande went outside and came along the side of the house to a path. They removed the body from the trunk, used a chainsaw to tear it apart, then placed it in a white garbage bag and disposed of it, the woman told police.

When the two were working outside, the woman said she stayed at home with Brandes’ mother, another woman who lived there, and a health aide from her hometown.

It was Brandes’ birthday, the woman said. And they later went to Popeyes for some fried chicken and played putt putt golf on the Congo River in Clearwater. They then ran around the Tampa Bay area looking for a place to dispose of their bodies. They found a green trash can near where Gres’ grandparents lived in Ruskin.

“It’s never going to happen.”

Detectives first spoke with Gres at the Pinellas County Jail on March 6th. He had been booked a day before. After police said they threatened Brands with an Air Force harpoon gun while trying to leave their apartment during the debate. His arrest occurred hours before the murder investigation began.

According to the affidavit, when detectives asked why Brand said he had taken part in the murder, Gress did not respond. He denied the knowledge of the young girl being murdered.

The next day he said he wanted to talk.

“This never happened,” he said.

He told detectives he picked up Miranda at his grandmother’s house in Gulfport. According to the affidavit, he was told she was 21, but later learned that she was 16.

He was convinced that Miranda had stole the ring. He took her to his apartment and said he “collected her together” for the majority of the week. It was a gift from a friend, he said, and that means a lot to him.

He said Miranda just trembling. He meant that she was laughing at him.

The affidavit states that he and Brande repeatedly beat the girl. Whenever they hurt her, he said he would go to his resume to get some medicine to help her heal.

He accused Brande of causing Miranda’s death. He explained that she would push the billiard ball into Miranda’s throat and cover her face with a lap. He said he couldn’t reach her as quickly as he thrusts through a plastic hole so that she could breathe. He confirms that they took Miranda’s body to Brandes’ mother’s house in Largo and disposed of it in Ruskin.

The detective asked about the allegations that he killed the animal. It was partly true, he said. He said he would get and kill animals primarily through Craigslist. However, he denied throwing them from the Skyway Bridge. Rather, he disposed of them in the trash cans in the apartment.

According to the affidavit, he said he would do this, so he said he would not kill his girlfriend or other people.

Brandy relied on the police on March 8th. The affidavit says Gress primarily condemned Brands for the worst violence against Miranda.

She described herself as a victim and was afraid of being beaten by Gres. She said she had no choice, but does what he told her. She was too afraid to tell the police.

Times staff writers Tony Marello and Jack Plater contributed to this report.