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DUANE BOURNEThe woman charged in her daughter's death has waived extradition from Wisconsin. The child's stepfather is resistant.
BROOKSVILLE - The mother of a murdered 3-year-old waived an extradition hearing, clearing the way for her return to face murder charges in Florida, authorities said.
Vicki Anne Schober Grossberndt, whose daughter Megan LeeAnn Pratt disappeared more than a decade ago, announced her intention not to fight extradition Friday, Wood County, Wis., Lt. Bob Levendoske said. Grossberndt, who has since remarried and recently had another child, has been living in Nekoosa, Wis.
Levendoske said he was not sure when the 35-year-old former Brooksville resident would be returned to Hernando County to face a first-degree murder charge.
Meanwhile, her ex-husband and Megan's stepfather, Jesse James Schober, 35, told Kershaw County, S.C. authorities that he wants to fight extradition. He remained in Kershaw County Detention Center on Monday pending execution of a governor's warrant, Sheriff Steve McCaskill said.
Both were arrested and charged last week with first-degree murder for a crime that, investigators said, occurred between 1990 and 1991 but went unreported until Megan's grandmother came forward in February 2002 asking questions about the toddler's disappearance.
Following up on Sarah Mowery's inquiries, Hernando County investigators questioned Megan's parents, who by then had left Florida and were divorced.
Authorities said Jesse Schober eventually confessed to fatally beating the 3-year-old and burying her body in a patch of woods west of Brooksville. Grossberndt also talked to investigators, but offered a different account of the night in question, authorities said. Still, it wasn't enough for prosecutors to make their case. No arrests were made.
As the murder investigation rolled past the one-year mark, it became the responsibility of Detective Michael Nelson, the head of the Hernando County sheriff's cold case unit.
"We knew if we chased it hard enough, we still had a chance to get it," said Nelson, who traveled to Wisconsin and South Carolina in connection with the arrest of the two suspects last week. Nelson called the investigation "an uphill" struggle.
"It was not your smoking gun case," he said. "It was not as if the case happened a year ago. Any time you are dealing with the death of a child it is emotional. It was one of those things that even though it tugs at you, you can't let it go."
In July, after months of unsuccessful searches, Nelson and Sgt. Doug Campbell traveled to South Carolina, Wisconsin and parts of Florida to interview law enforcement officers, social workers and the foster family who cared for Megan for eight weeks in 1990.
Those interviewed all remembered Megan in some way, said Nelson. But they all could not remember the circumstances in detail, proving a difficult obstacle to overcome, he said.
"It's sometimes difficult to remember what happened yesterday, let alone 12 years ago," Nelson said. "It was not like this happened yesterday."
That's why investigators worked so meticulously to reconstruct what may have led to Megan's death, and more importantly, what happened on the night in question, Nelson said.
The picture they developed, Nelson said, was gruesome:
On the night in question - no one has been able to pinpoint exactly when - the Schobers were arguing. Meanwhile, Megan sat in her high chair eating and playing with her food. That infuriated Jesse Schober, who struck the 3-year-old-girl on her head.
As the couple continued to argue, Jesse Schober took the toddler for a bath, investigators said. But seeing that the girl was splashing around, he rammed her against the side of the bathtub, knocking her unconscious, investigators said.
Later, either Jesse Schober or his wife placed Megan in a bedroom and left her there. The next day, she was dead, investigators said.
Later, investigators said Jesse Schober placed Megan's decomposing body into a sleeping bag she had received for Christmas and dug a hole in a patch of woods that is now a grazing pasture for chickens and goats adjacent the singlewide mobile home. He filled the hole with wood and burned the body.
Despite an extensive police search, Megan's remains have never been found.
- Duane Bourne can be reached at 754-6114. Send e-mail to dbourne@sptimes.com