Woman held in fatal beating of Hernando man

By Joel Anderson, Times Staff Writer
Published February 16, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - The women, most of them young and some of them drug addicts, would regularly slip in and out of Robert Rutherford's modest apartment on S Main Street, Tina Kimbell said.

Kimbell said Rutherford, her neighbor and good friend, would welcome the women into his home and give them a place to stay when times were rough. Rutherford refused to pass judgment on what Kimbell called "unsavory characters."

So when Rutherford, 68, was found beaten and choked to death in his apartment early Thursday, the victim of an apparent homicide, Kimbell was not all that surprised.

"It was sort of inevitable," Kimbell said Friday. "I had told him that he was going to have to be careful."

Brooksville Police on Thursday evening arrested Treva Lynn Anderson, 23, of Spring Hill in connection with Rutherford's death. She faces a charge of first-degree murder and is being held without bail at the Hernando County Jail.

Police said their investigation, witness statements and autopsy results all linked Anderson to the death. Rutherford, known to most of his friends as "Bunk" or "Bunky," was hit several times on the head with an unidentified weapon and strangled in his apartment, police said.

Anderson had spent much of Wednesday with Rutherford in his home in the Julian Apartment at 770 S Main St., Brooksville police Chief George Turner said. Police are trying to determine how the two met, the nature of their relationship and a possible motive for the killing.

"On the last day of his life, he was spending time with her," Turner said. "They were together for a while, but we don't know why. We know that she didn't live there."

Without going into much detail, Turner also confirmed that Rutherford seemed to have a habit of embracing people who had fallen on hard times. Anderson was unemployed and had been staying in a number of places in the weeks before she was arrested, Turner said.

"Mr. Rutherford seemed to avail himself to help people that were down on their luck and didn't have homes," the chief said.

The most recent address listed for Anderson was 3582 Dow Lane in Spring Hill. A woman who was coming out of that home Friday identified herself as Anderson's cousin and declined to comment other than to say, "Treva is doing fine."

Anderson was wanted on a probation violation at the time of her arrest, Turner said, though he wasn't sure what crime she had committed or which county had issued the warrant. A search of the woman's criminal history on Friday turned up no prior arrests or convictions.

Only a few doors away from the apartment where Rutherford's body was found, Kimbell fondly remembered a gentle man who seemed destined to invite trouble into his living room. Often, Kimbell said, she would head over to chat with Rutherford but turn around when she saw people in his apartment who made her feel uncomfortable.

Kimbell said she had grown used to the sight of at least three women who would visit Rutherford. But she knew nothing about Anderson.

"She must have been a new kid on the block," Kimbell said.

However, Rutherford was far from naive when it came to women or the dangers of surrounding himself with people who seemingly had little to lose, Kimbell said. Rutherford, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, often boasted of having at least three pistols in his home.

"He may have been a country boy, but he wasn't stupid by any means," Kimbell said. "It's sad that he seemed to be beating the cancer but it was his kindness and compassion that got him in the end."

Several calls made to Rutherford's relatives in Tennessee weren't returned Friday. The number at Rutherford's apartment had been disconnected.

Joel Anderson can be reached at joelanderson@sptimes.com or 352 754-6120.

[Last modified February 15, 2008, 21:46:09]