A two-week frantic search for a missing Filipino-American teenager from Florida tragically ended with the discovery of her burned body stuffed inside a torched refrigerator abandoned in a wooded area. Police said two people confessed to her murder.

The remains of 17-year-old straight A student Annamarie Cruz Randazzo of Cape Coral, Florida, was found by campers last Aug. 6 in the wooded area of Lehigh Acres.

She was last seen on the night of July 21 when she dropped off two friends after watching a movie at a Cape Coral theater. Her 1990 Ford Mustang was found torched the next day in a field.

Police say the suspects — Joshua Henninger, a 16-year-old acquaintance of Randazzo’s, and Jeremy Lee Chapman, 23 — have confessed to the murder. They were each charged with second-degree murder and kidnapping.

Police say Henninger of Cape Coral and Chapman of North Fort Myers planned to kill Randazzo, a student at Mariner High School and a promising graphic and fashion artist.

According to sources close to the investigation, Chapman and Henninger wanted to kill someone and chose the Fil-Am girl because at 4’11” and only 100 pounds, she was an easy target.

Henninger reportedly called the victim’s cell phone and urged her to come to his house, after she dropped off two friends from a movie.

When she arrived at 1 a.m., police say a scuffle occurred before the suspects hit her, bound her with tape and took her to a second location where they beat her until she was dead. They drove to a wooded area where they set the girl’s body on fire in an abandoned refrigerator.

The remains were so badly burned, the Medical Examiner’s Office has not been able to positively identify the body as Randazzo’s.
Detectives are still waiting for a medical examiner’s report to determine exactly how the victim died, said Cape Coral police spokesman Angelo Bitsis.

One of the suspects, Chapman, allegedly told police he also killed a 66-year-old man, John Hardin, from whom he rented a room, around the same time Randazzo was murdered. He told investigators he beat Hardin in the head with a crowbar after arguing with Hardin, who wanted Chapman to move out of his house. Hardin’s body was found in his home’s garage.

Chapman is on suicide watch in the Lee County Jail as he awaits charges in the death of his roommate.

The other suspect, Henninger, is being held separately in the juvenile detention center.
Lee Circuit Judge Hugh E. Starnes denied bail for both suspects.

Prosecutors will have until Aug. 26 to decide whether to charge Henninger as an adult. They will base their decision on two things: the harshness of the crime and his criminal record, which is rather lengthy.

Last March, the Department of Juvenile Justice placed Henninger at the Southwest Florida Marine Institute on Fort Myers Beach. It is an alternative school for troubled kids.
According to their records, he spent a month there, of which he rarely attended class.

While investigating the murder of Randazzo, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office spoke with the father of a 16-year-old girl from North Fort Myers, who was allegedly having sex with Chapman.

According to a sheriff’s report, the girl is eight weeks pregnant. Chapman was charged Monday with one count of lewd or lascivious battery, a second degree felony, for impregnating a young minor.

Chapman also wanted in Broward County for failing to report to his probation officer, as required in his sentence for burglary and criminal mischief.

On Tuesday, the mother of Chapman issued a long statement on her website about her son.
Shela Viehl (S.L. Viehl), a noted science fiction/romance author, she said that she loves her son, but admits he has “a long history of mental illness, which evolved into criminal activity beginning at age 11.”

“I could tell you how many years my family and I have struggled to help him, how many doctors and therapies and programs we tried, and how dearly we have paid for it,” Viehl writes. “All of it is spelled out in his many court case files, but none of that really matters now. We weren’t able to stop him from pursuing the criminal life he desired.”

“When Jeremy was 21, his criminal activity began to escalate, and I felt threatened by his behavior,” she says. “It forced me to make a terrible choice: us or him. I chose to break off almost all contact with my son. I did this to protect my two younger children, their father and me. I have suffered things that you will never understand, not only for this decision, but for my son and the tragic choices he’s made. I loved him, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was. I am praying for my son, the victims, and their families. I ask you to do the same.”

Funeral services for Annamarie Cruz Randazzo are scheduled today (Aug. 12) at 11 a.m. at St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Church in Cape Coral. She will be buried at Coral Ridge Cemetery in a private ceremony.
Randazzo’s parents, John S. Randazzo and Mercedita Cruz Walter, and other family members held a press conference Monday at the home of Randazzo’s grandfather. Many were red-eyed from crying and lack of sleep, and several hugged each other as cousin Liz Justesen read a prepared statement. Justesen thanked police, friends, neighbors, searchers and everyone who helped look for Randazzo or soothe the family’s pain.

“No family should ever have to bear this burden,” she said. “But to everyone who helped, we are sincerely grateful.”

“The devastation is unimaginable to our family. We need time to deal with this,” said Randazzo’s stepfather, Jeff Walter. “We woke up to the nightmare of her being gone, and now this.”

Cape Coral residents said they were shocked and outraged by the two slayings.