Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Florida Man Tried to Get Away with Girlfriend's Murder: Police

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Stacy Powell's co-workers became concerned when she hadn't logged onto her work computer. Police in Auburndale, Florida went to her home to check on her and found her dead. Police said Powell's boyfriend, Andrew Ridgeway, murdered her and took off for Georgia but lied to them about his location and Powell's. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the latest in the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lccrimefix and access information about almost anyone!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Chief Terry Storie https://www.facebook.com/AuburndalePoliceDept CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A Florida woman murdered, police say, by her significant other, who took off for Georgia. I have the latest on the case and what police say the suspect told them. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Stacey Powell was a 48-year-old woman with family

and children who loved her dearly. When Powell didn't log into her work computer a couple of days last week, her colleagues became concerned. Last Thursday, police in Auburndale, Florida, got a call about Powell. Auburndale is in Polk County, outside of Tampa, and police went to Powell's home to check on her. Stacey Powell hadn't logged into her work computer since Tuesday, two days earlier. When police went to the house, they found a handyman who told them that Stacey Powell and her boyfriend, Andrew Ridgway, weren't home. But while they were there, police say Andrew Ridgway called the handyman after seeing police show up on the home's security cameras so they say he was watching.

Police say Ridgway tried to throw them off of his tracks by claiming that he was out of town in North Carolina with Powell's grandmother and that Stacey Powell was in Jamaica after boarding a flight at the Orlando International Airport. In reality, police say Ridgway was really about seven hours away in Augusta, Georgia, driving Powell's truck. Police in Augusta picked up Ridgway and booked him into the jail. This is his booking photo from the Richmond County

Jail. Auburndale police have issued a warrant for Andrew Ridgway's arrest for second-degree murder. He's also accused of providing false information about his whereabouts and Powell's whereabouts to law enforcement. Ironically, Ridgway had posted a photo of himself with Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd on his Facebook page a few months back. It was at a community event where people could meet the popular sheriff. Polk County's investigators would end up assisting in this investigation. I want to bring in Chief Terry Story of the Auburndale Police Department. His department has been investigating this case and leading the investigation. Chief Story,

bring me up to speed. What is the latest news on this case? Latest news is that after Mr. Ridgway was arrested in Augusta, Georgia, we were able to secure the second degree homicide warrant and he's being held up there on that. I know that he has to be extradited, obviously, and that's just a formal proceeding. You had said in a press conference that you were going to be sending your detectives up there. How did that go? Are you able to tell us? Yeah, so they went up there to talk to him and he requested an attorney, but we did bring the vehicle he was driving back. And that was Stacey Powell's vehicle, from what I understand. Yes, it was a Dodge Ram truck.

Let's go back to the very beginning. How did you all get the call about this case? I know there was some concern that she hadn't been logging into her work computer. That's exactly how we first got the tip on this, was that she hadn't for two days logged into her work computer. And it was highly unusual. So her employer actually reached out to her father first and spoke to him and figured out that he hadn't talked to her in a couple of days as well, which a couple of days wasn't unusual, but it was pretty unusual for her not to return calls

and things like that to him. So we went to the, obviously we were concerned for her at that point because she was unusual behavior. And so that's when we started the investigation. You guys go to the house, obviously, to check in on her. You know, from what I understand, there was a handyman there doing some work. So tell me what happens as your officers encounter this handyman who's just there doing his job. Well, the handyman, we inquired about

her whereabouts and he said that neither of them were home at the time, that he had last seen her the day prior at about 3.30 p.m. when he left. Both of them had walked him out the door thanking him for his work and that sort of thing. And then after that, he didn't see it. This case really got me thinking about whether there were any red flags out there about Andrew Ridgway. I decided to put his name into truthfinder.com to try to find out.

Truthfinder is one of the largest public record search services out there. Andrew Ridgway had a list of things that appeared in the criminal and traffic records results section when I searched his name. Some of those records appear to be for past traffic citations and an old criminal case that appears to have been dismissed.

Truthfinder is really great because it will show you criminal and traffic records, as I mentioned, a person's past and current addresses, phone numbers, and social media accounts. And the thing that I really love about it, you can see the sex offenders who live in your neighborhood. So right now you can try it and get 50% off of confidential background reports. Just log on to www.truthfinder.com slash LC crime fix and start accessing information about almost anyone. It's my understanding though, as you all are going through the house, you discover some things that lead you to believe that Stacy Powell had been murdered. Well, not initially. Initially, what we did, we made contact with the suspect

through the handyman, through his phone. He had called and inquired as to why the police was at his house. And eventually, one of my officers spoke to him on the phone and we were pretty quickly able to figure out that he wasn't telling us the truth about where she was. And so that's when we started digging deep, got the search warrant and then came to the house. How were you able to determine that he was not being truthful about where Stacey was? Well, because I mean, the first thing that we're going to do is verify everything that he's saying. And we knew for a fact that she didn't get on a plane to Jamaica. So you get the search warrant for the house and then the investigation kind of ramps up from there. What did you find in the house that leads you to believe that, you know, there was definitely

foul play involved? That's some of that stuff we're not releasing right now because we still have an opportunity to perhaps speak to him when he comes back down here in front of an attorney. We may be able to still question him. And there's some things that he would only know that we're not going to release. Was she found, was her body found in the house? It was. Okay. You know, has there ever been any concern? Were you learning about any concerns among family members or friends that this relationship was one that maybe had some domestic violence going on? I mean, I've seen that he's been arrested in the past. He's had a lot of traffic tickets and things like that. But I haven't seen anything

regarding domestic violence or anything like that. No. And we've never been called to that residence for domestic violence case. Okay. Everything in his background is pretty, it's misdemeanor stuff. Right. Not violent. right not violent so so uh where do you go from here i mean obviously um he's being held up in augusta georgia he's got the extradition hearing coming up uh has there been any indication that he'll waive extradition and then be brought back down to polk county so you guys can you know file the second degree murder charge yeah i spoke I spoke to Richmond County Sheriff's Office this morning. We have no idea what he's going to do, if he's going to waive or not. And if he does, if he doesn't waive, we'll just we'll get a governor's warrant, get him back down here.

But really, the hard work is beginning, tracking down all the things that we have, the leads that we got from the search warrant, the evidence obtained from the truck. All of that stuff is being processed. And that takes some time time because a lot of times what happens when you start digging into these things, more things reveal themselves. So it's going to be a long road and a long investigation. Talk to me about the resources that have gone into this investigation. You know, you guys, yeah, you're a smaller department. And then you, I think, called in Grady Judd's department, the sheriff's office, for some assistance, if I understand correctly. Yeah. So we have a very great working relationship with the sheriff's office. In fact, we have a pretty good relationship with all the surrounding ones as well.

And as well as the medical examiner's office. So it's, you know, it's a phone call away. We pick up the phone and they come. They sent three crime scene detectives out there to process the scene for us during the search warrant. They did a phenomenal job. They were out there until past like 4 a.m. in the morning working through that house. There was a lot of stuff that they processed that we needed them for. And as usual, they did a fantastic and outstanding job.

Now we'll be using the FDLE crime lab for forensic analysis and that sort of thing. So there's a whole bunch of resources. Even though we're just under 50 sworn officers, we have tons of resources available to us. I want to go back to when he was tracked down in Georgia. I mean, was that how did that process go? Was that a difficult process or were you able to find him pretty quickly? Because he said he was in a totally different state from what your press release said with Stacey Powell's grandmother. I mean, did you have though, that we were not tracking his cell children. You know, her father had been in touch with you all. Her coworker had been in touch with her father. I mean, this is devastating for them. You know, if there's no history of domestic violence, maybe no red flags. I mean, maybe there

were things when they're looking back on it that they're seeing now. How are they doing? Do you know? We met with them late last night. They were here at about 6.30 last night, and we visited with them until probably around 8.30. And so, of course, they're hurt. They lost their mother. I know that the family didn't really like him too much and they kind of separated themselves from him. But there's been no indication that there was any violence between the two of them. And they had been together, you know, a couple of years from what I understand. What we can tell, it's been about three years, two to three years, somewhere in that neighborhood. Well, it's a really, really sad case.

Is there anything you can share with us about Stacey Powell? You know, anything personal so our viewers and listeners know a little bit about her. So we're still digging into her background. We got a lot of insight from the daughters last night. You know, she was just a calm person. She wasn't a violent person. So we don't really know what happened. But obviously you're talking about, she has daughters, she has a family who loves her and obviously they deserve answers and hopefully you'll be able to get those for them. Yeah. Chief Story, thank you so much. Chief Terry Story for joining me. I appreciate it. You're welcome.

Chief Story wants people to know if you're in a relationship that's toxic or there's domestic violence involved, that there is help out there. There are shelters and 1-800 numbers that you can reach out to 24 hours a day to get help. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.