ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A man was recently brought to Orange County from California to face murder charges that date back more than a decade.
Demorris Hunter was brought back to Florida Thursday and faced a judge Friday for the 2002 death of his neighbor.
Hunter was in the early years of four life sentences in California for an unrelated murder.
He’s been convicted of at least three murders in California and is now accused in the killing of an Orange County woman years ago.
According to documents, he could have the death penalty.
Hunter left Florida in 2002.
There’s a chance he never would have been back had it not been for a recent murder indictment.
It’s a situation that’s been years in the making.
Investigators immediately identified Hunter as the suspect in a College Park woman’s death.
He was already wanted in Oakland, California, for a murder earlier that year.
Police said he shot a woman then drove across the country to Florida where he attempted to begin a new life in Orlando.
Investigators said two months later he got into an argument with his neighbor, Theresa Green in a stairwell.
Shortly after that, police said he killed her, stuffed her body in the trunk of her car and dropped it off at a Walgreens in Sanford.
Then he hit the road again, this time to Texas.
His luck ran out in 2003 when federal agents arrested him.
He was sent to California to face murder charges and in 2005, a judge sentenced him to 110 years in prison for the Oakland murder.
Now he’s back in Florida to face charges for Green’s murder.
“It’s not unusual in a murder case for Florida to bring back a defendant to stand trial even if he’s been convicted and serving a long sentence in another state,” said WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer.
According to published reports in California, Hunter has a long criminal history dating back to the 1980s.
He murdered two men and left another paraplegic.
Plea bargains allowed him to get out of prison in those cases.
WFTV
