When police responded to David Tronnes and Shanti Cooper-Tronnes home, they found the 33-year-old woman’s body and the bathtub she supposedly slipped in were dry.
A Florida man accused of killing his wife told detectives he found her dead in a bathtub half-filled with running water, authorities said.
But when police responded to David Tronnes and Shanti Cooper-Tronnes' tony Delaney Park home on April 24, they found the 33-year-old woman’s body and the bathtub she supposedly slipped in were dry, according to the hours-long interview between the 50-year-old man and Orlando police.
The recording was released Wednesday by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office and obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
“Common sense would tell you if you pull a woman — soaking wet — out of a tub at 3 o’clock and call the police within six minutes, that everything will be soaking wet when police arrive within three minutes of that,” Orlando police Det. Teresa Sprague told Tronnes. “That’s common sense.”
Tronnes, who appeared to be wrapped in a blanket as he sat across from the investigators, replied: “So how did everything dry out?”
“That’s our question,” Sprague said.
Tronnes told detectives he believed his wife slipped and fell while getting into the bath. He said he returned home from walking their dogs and found his wife dead. He told police he brought her body to the living room, but neither her body, nor the floor on which she was placed, were wet. An autopsy showed Cooper-Tronnes’ cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head and strangulation.
“Trust me: The evidence and her body speak for itself,” Det. Barb McClellan said. “And your story is B.S. So you better figure it out before it goes too far. Because I’m telling you right now, nobody is going to believe that. Nobody. If you maintain that, you’re going to look like a fool. It’s complete hogwash.”
Tronnes told the detectives he “didn’t have the information” they were looking for.
But investigators pushed back, in one recording accusing him of pretending to be upset about his wife’s death.
“You’ve fake cried for about seven or eight hours today,” Sprague said. “Not one tear came out of your eyes, not one. You have fake cried over this woman’s death since we made contact with you … There is not a lick of remorse for what you did to this woman.”
Tronnes was arrested in August. He was indicted on a first-degree murder charge and is being held without bond at the Orange County Jail. He has pleaded not guilty.
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