Florida Woman Who Murdered, Dismembered, and Lived With Remains of Her Boyfriend for 6 Months Sentenced for Life
Penny Rebecca Pospisil pleaded guilty to three charges, including second-degree murder.
A Florida woman was sentenced to life in prison in the brutal killing of her physically disabled boyfriend, dismembering him and living in an RV with the body parts for six months — until she couldn't stand the smell, authorities said. Penny Rebecca Pospisil, 51, was sentenced Friday in Sumter County Circuit Court in Florida after pleading guilty in October to three charges, including second-degree murder, in the 2018 killing of Anthony Mitchell, 55, according to court records. She received the maximum sentence of life on the most serious charge, second-degree murder, and was sentenced to consecutive prison terms on the other two charges. Here's what you need to know about this heinous crime.
What Happened?
Pospisil was accused of killing Mitchell in late summer 2018 at the Lake Pan RV Village in Sumter County before cutting his body into pieces and keeping his remains in her recreational vehicle. She eventually moved the RV to another campground in Brevard County, Florida. Pospisil initially told people that Mitchell died of natural causes. After her arrest in 2019, she said Mitchell had abused her and that she killed him in self-defense.
Who Was Murdered?
Mitchell was Pospisil's boyfriend. Sheriff's deputies looking into Mitchell's death doubted Pospisil's explanations because she attempted to hide what happened, they said. "She began going around the campground telling people that he had died of natural causes, and she had him cremated," said Patrick Breeden of the Sumter County Sheriff's Office.
The Gruesome Details
Mitchell's killing was "especially brutal and heinous," prosecutors said in a sentencing memo last month. He suffered "violent blunt force trauma injuries from a weapon" before Pospisil strangled him. She then dismembered him and "intentionally degraded" his body "to the point that he was unrecognizable," prosecutors said. "Notably absent from the crime scene was his heart and other internal organs," according to the memo. "Anthony Mitchell's genitals were severed from his decaying body as well. This was a vicious and abhorrent killing that was further underscored by the Defendant's ongoing efforts to conceal the crime, including her workman-like dismemberment and forced body degradation, moving the crime scene from Sumter County to Brevard County, fabricating numerous explanations of the smell emanating from the camper told to park neighbors in both counties, and the continuous acquisition of tools and chemicals to dismember and conceal the victim's dead body."
How It Came to Light
Pospisil was arrested in December 2019 after neighbors at the Brevard County campground complained about the stench coming from her RV. Pospisil lived for about five months at the Wickham Park Campground. Neighbors also noted that Pospisil took showers at the pool. When Pospisil failed to pay her lot fee on time, investigators searched her RV and found Mitchell's decomposing body parts.
What's Next
In addition to a life sentence, Pospisil was sentenced to 15 years on the charge of abuse of a dead human body and five years on a charge of grand theft of more than $300 but less than $20,000. The sentences are to be added to her life sentence. Pospisil's public defender, Christopher Lance Shropa, did not say whether she plans to appeal her sentence, Law&Crime reported.
