Florida | Jury recommends death sentence for Jeffrey Crum in killing of 12-year-old girl

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — A Hernando County jury has recommended the death penalty for a 65-year-old man who was found guilty last week of raping and killing 12-year-old Jennifer Odom.

Sentencing for Jeffrey Crum was held this week.

Crum abducted Odom in 1993 after she stepped off her school bus in Pasco County. Her body was found in a Hernando County orange grove six days later.

The case was a long-unsolved cold case. Odom disappeared on February 19, 1993. Crum was linked years later—and charged around 2023—via investigative work connecting the crime to a similar 1992 attack on another teen, for which he was already serving a life sentence. That attack left the victim permanently disabled with a brain injury.

In this case, prosecutors sought the death penalty given the nature of the crime—kidnapping, sexual battery, and first-degree murder of a 12-year-old child.

The penalty phase followed immediately. The same jury heard victim-impact statements from Odom’s family, evidence of Crum’s prior violence, and defense mitigation arguments (such as his background, alcohol issues, and the fact he is already imprisoned for life). On August 25—what would have been Odom’s 46th birthday—the jury deliberated a couple of hours and voted 12-0 to recommend death.

Under Florida law the jury’s recommendation is advisory, not binding. A formal sentencing hearing is scheduled for October 21, 2026, where the defense can present more mitigation. The judge will then decide the actual sentence: death or life.

"This is justice," said Odom’s mom, Renee Converse. "There is no closure because I'll never have my beautiful smiling girl back in my arms. But it is justice. Actually, it's justice on her 46th birthday. So it is justice because she would have been 46 today.”

Prosecutor Richard Buxman said the death penalty was the "logical and reasoned moral judgment."

“The defendant chose to commit the ultimate crime in the worst way possible to the most vulnerable victim, a child," Buxman said. "For those choices, ladies and gentlemen, the defendant deserves the punishment of death.”

Defense attorney Daniel Hernandez reminded the jury that Crum was already in prison for life in connection with a previous case.

“Ladies and gentlemen, he is going to die in prison regardless," he said. "I ask you to recommend life. It is the correct and practical choice, considering the circumstances as they exist today.”

Odom’s stepdad, Clark Converse, told the jury Monday that Jennifer’s murder shattered his family.

“The pain she was in kept her from allowing me to try to comfort her," he said of his wife. "I was unable to be her husband because all she wanted was her daughter. I began to believe that I had lost my wife and family.”

Hernando State Attorney Bill Gladson says it would be unusual for the judge to go against the jury's wishes on the sentence.

“Generally speaking, it would be rare. I have seen it happen," Gladson said.

Jennifer's family says they are thankful to the jury because they all agreed the death sentence is what they wanted to see happen in this case.

Source: baynews9.com, Staff; DPN, AI, August 25, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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