Victim's identity almost certain

Cuc Thu Tran has been missing since Thursday morning.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM, Times Staff Writer
Published September 15, 2007

TAMPA - At 5:30 Thursday morning, Cuc Thu Tran, 50, left her Seffner home to go on her morning jog.

She never returned.

At 6:50 a.m., Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies found a van ablaze in an empty lot off Bullfrog Court in Gibsonton. Inside was the body of a woman.

Now, deputies say, they think that woman was Tran. They're calling the death a homicide.

Tran's son reported his mother missing at 4 p.m. Thursday, said Maj. Harold Winsett.

Evidence found near her home at 5212 Cantata Court N and an examination of the bodyindicate that she was the woman in the van, Winsett said, although investigators aren't certain.

"The odds are greater at this point that it is than it isn't," Winsett said.

The van was a blue 1993 Dodge that was stolen sometime between Wednesday and Thursday from Advance Discount Auto, 11850 Martin Luther King Blvd. in Seffner, where it had been displayed for sale by owner, Winsett said.

Winsett asked for anyone with information in the case to contact the sheriff's office.

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 813 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com.

[Last modified September 15, 2007, 01:18:19]