Holiday, Florida’s Jeffrey Crum Sr. found guilty in Jennifer Odom’s murder

Jeffrey Norman Crum Sr. is an American convict from Holiday, Pasco County, Florida, United States. The census-designated place is around 30.5 miles away from Wesley Chapel, Pasco County, which is home to Thomas E. Weightman Middle School.

Jennifer Renee Odom was a seventh grader at Thomas E. Weightman Middle School. Born in Dade City, Pasco County to Sidney Pete Odom and Renee Converse, Jennifer turned 12 on August 25, 1992.

BIOGRAPHY

Crum has a long record of arrests and prosecutions (RAP) sheet. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. He was born in 1962.
2. In 1981, he was convicted of robbery and his son Jeffrey Norman Crum II was born.
3. In 1985, he was convicted of sexual battery case in Hillsborough County, Florida.
4. In 1987, he was convicted of sexual assault and kidnapping and he served 18 months in prison.
5. In 1992, he tried to kill a minor.
6. In 1993, he abducted and killed Odom.
7. In 1995, he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Hillsborough County.
8. In 2001, he was sentenced to 30 days in the Hillsborough County Jail in Tampa, Hillsborough County for violating probation related to a domestic violence battery case.
9. In 2007, he was found guilty of driving on a suspended or revoked license in Pasco County.
10. In 2012, his son Jeffrey II was found guilty of two counts of robbery with a gun or deadly weapon and another charge of robbery.
11. In 2015, he was arrested.
12. In 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison for the crime he committed in 1992.
13. In 2026, he was found guilty in the murder of Odom.

TIMELINE

Richard Buxman was one of the prosecutors when Jeffrey Sr. was found guilty in 2026 in the murder of Odom in 1993. Over four days of testimony, the prosecutors presented evidence that the suspect owned a blue pickup truck similar to the one witnesses remembered seeing the victim get into the day she disappeared.

1990s

• On January 16, 1992, he sexually assaulted and tried to kill a girl, then 17, in Spring Hill, Hernando County, Florida. She was enrolled in the special education program of Land O’Lakes High School in the  Land O’ Lakes, Pasco County. She survived but he was not identified as a suspect for decades.
• On February 19, 1993, he abducted Odom, who was found dead in an orange grove in Hernando County on February 25, 1993.
• On January 5, 1995, Odom’s book bag and clarinet case were found in Hernando County. The Federal Bureau of Investigation lifted fingerprints from the items but for decades, there was never a hit in the database for a suspect and he was not linked to the crime.

2010s

• On February 26, 2015, while he was staying at the Darlington Residential Treatment facility in Holiday, he was arrested for the crime he committed on January 16, 1992. He was charged with sexual battery and attempted murder. Detectives were able to connect deoxyribonucleic acid found at the crime scene to his son. 

2020s

• On July 27, 2023, he was arrested for the kidnapping, sexual battery and murder of Odom.
• On August 20, 2026, a jury found him guilty on all three counts in the kidnapping, sexual abuse and killing of Odom.