Background: News footage of the scene outside the Auburndale, Fla. home of Stacey Powell, where she was found dead (WTVT). Inset: Andrew Ridgeway (Auburndale Police Department).
A Florida man who lied to police about his girlfriend's whereabouts before she was found brutally murdered in her home was sentenced to prison.
Andrew Ridgeway, 47, entered a plea of no contest to a charge of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of his girlfriend, 48-year-old Stacey Ann Powell. Powell was found dead at her home in Auburndale, a city around the midpoint between Tampa and Orlando, on Feb. 6, 2025, a day after she was reported missing. When police questioned Ridgeway, he told them that she flew to Jamaica to visit her ill father.
Police made contact with Powell's father, who was not only in good health, but living in North Carolina.
According to an affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, police responded to Powell's home on the morning of Feb. 6, 2025, for a well-being check after someone reported that Powell had not signed in to her work computer for two days. When officers arrived, they encountered a contractor who told police that he was there to work on the home's kitchen cabinets. He had been told the day before by Ridgeway that there was an "emergency," and the contractor would not be able to come inside. The contractor said he left tools at the home and was there to retrieve them.
While at the home, police heard Ridgeway on the doorbell camera asking why they were at his house after he saw them on surveillance video he was viewing remotely. When police asked Ridgeway where he was, he told them he was in North Carolina with Powell's grandmother, trying to convince her to go to Jamaica. Ridgeway explained to police that Powell's father was "extremely sick," and Powell took an Uber to the airport in Orlando, Florida, to fly to Jamaica to be with him.
Police made contact with Powell's father, who was in North Carolina and said he was "not sick." After the police obtained a search warrant for the home, they went inside and came across a bloody scene. Powell was deceased, covered in "plastic and moving blankets." Her face had sustained so much blunt force trauma that it was "distorted and unable to identify positively."
Her body had several gunshot wounds and lacerations. Several 9 mm shell casings were found at the scene as well as bullet holes in the walls.
Auburndale Police Chief Terry Storie said Powell had been attacked "savagely," and the home was so bloody that "not one, two, but three crime scene technicians" were provided to process the scene. Storie said Powell had been "brutally attacked and murdered."
Ridgeway was tracked down in Georgia and arrested on Feb. 7, 2025.
On Jan. 9, Ridgeway changed his not guilty plea to no contest for the charges of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence. He was adjudicated guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison, with credit for time served.