A California mother was brutally murdered after making a police report hoping to protect her daughter. Joanne Witt, 47, alleged that her daughter, 14-year-old Tylar Witt, was in a relationship with 19-year-old Steven Colver and called it statutory rape. Just days later, police reportedly found Joanne Witt in her El Dorado Hills home covered in blood with multiple stab wounds.
No charges were filed against Colver in the 2009 statutory rape case, but he was considered a suspect in Joanne Witt's murder, People reported. During the investigation, police learned that Colver had been living with the mother and daughter and that the teens had lied to the single mom, telling her they were just friends. When Joanne Witt exposed the truth, she wound up dead.
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Colver and Tylar Witt had told Joanne Witt the teenage boy was gay.
Colver and Tylar Witt met at a coffee house in 2008, according to a 2012 episode of 48 Hours Mystery. Weeks after they met, the teens convinced her mother to allow Colver to rent a room in her home. They said he was gay and denied any relationship between the pair. Although friends and family were uncomfortable with the situation, Joanne Witt reportedly didn't care.
"No one — every friend she had, everyone in the family — did not want him in there." But as Norb Witt, Joanne Witt's father, told 48 Hours Mystery, "Joanne was very strong willed …"
The mom caught the teens in the act.
Prosecutor Lisette Suder told the news program that Joanne Witt walked in on her daughter and Colver in a sexual act. The mother kicked the teenager out of her home. The teens allegedly continued to see each other and snuck into the house while Joanne Witt was gone. When she realized what was happening, she called the El Dorado Sheriff's Office and reported Colver.
"[S]he wanted him away from her daughter. But they couldn't stand the thought of not being together. And so that's when the plotting began," Suder said.
Police believed Colver had killed Joanne Witt in a brutal attack.
According to Suder, investigators felt that Colver was the sole attacker but that Tylar Witt let him into the home on June 11, 2009, to kill her mother while she slept. Joann Witt had at least 20 stab wounds, according to People.
The teens reportedly disappeared after the attack, seemingly taking the murder weapon, which police believe was a kitchen knife, with them. The weapon was never recovered.
Police apprehended the teens in San Francisco.
A manhunt ensued and ended about 115 miles away. Two days after discovering Joanne Witt's body, police found the teens changing their clothes behind a shopping mall. They were promptly arrested and charged with murder, 48 Hours Mystery reported.
Both vehemently denied killing Joanne Witt, blaming the other, but they were ultimately convicted of the crime.
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A judge sentenced both teens to life.
Initially, Tylar Witt claimed the pair had nothing to do with her mother's death but reportedly confessed, hoping for a reduced prison term. She was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in 15 years. She could be released as early as 2024. She will be 29 years old.
Colver is not eligible for parole and will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Norb Witt told 48 Hours Mystery, "If she hadn't done whatever she did … her mother would still be alive today, probably …"
He reportedly sent letters to his granddaughter in prison but did not visit.
