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Slain girl, her siblings 'did not care for Onstott'

By KEVIN GRAHAM and CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published September 17, 2005

TAMPA - None of the kids liked David Onstott. Not Andrew. Not Richard. And definitely not their sister Sarah Lunde. But by the time anyone realized how much that really mattered, Sarah, 13, was already dead.

Four months after investigators found Sarah's body in an abandoned fish pond in Ruskin, a few new clues emerged Friday about Onstott, the convicted sex offender accused of raping the girl and choking her to death.

They are contained in about 1,500 pages of police files and other records released by the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office. The papers reveal more about Sarah's homelife, and her last hours alive.

Sarah's mother, Kelly May, told detectives Sarah never liked any of the men she brought home, including Onstott.

Sarah's brother, Richard Lunde, 21, said the same thing. He told detectives his sisters and brothers "did not care for Onstott and that was a group decision they had made."

That might be one reason why Sarah's other brother, Andrew Lunde, thought it was strange when Onstott showed up the night she disappeared.

Andrew, 17, the last one in Sarah's family to have reportedly see her alive, told detectives he had gone to Taco Bell to get food for his sister around midnight when she said she was hungry. Instead of heading straight home, he and a group of friends went joyriding in Apollo Beach, Brandon and Tampa.

Andrew told detectives Onstott showed up at his house between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on April 10 and asked for his mother. He said she wasn't at home, then Onstott took one step inside the house and picked up a beer bottle and left. He said that the bottle wasn't there when he left to get food for Sarah.

"When he pulled out of my driveway, he sped off and didn't turn on the light until the middle, towards the middle of the road," Andrew Lunde told detectives, according to a transcript of his interview.

Andrew Lunde then looked at his friend who was spending the night and asked why would Onstott take the beer bottle. "And then I said, he must have been here before," Andrew Lunde told detectives. "And then I shut the porch light off and went to sleep."

The clerk at a Hess gas station not far from Sarah's home told detectives that he "believes he saw" Sarah at his store about 1 a.m. on April 10. The clerk described what Sarah was wearing, noting the green cast on her left arm. He told detectives she came in and used the bathroom, then left.

It's the same Hess gas station, the clerk said, Onstott visited at least once a week to buy Bud Light.

Onstott pleaded not guilty to the murder charge in May. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty.

[Last modified September 17, 2005, 02:15:31]