Jailed Teen Lovebirds Considered Suicide While On Run
An apparent suicide note and two bowls filled with cereal and rat poison were found by police when they searched a Holiday Inn where the young couple stayed after the two allegedly murdered 47-year-old Joanne Witt in California.
Detectives also found marijuana, condoms and a DVD of the 2001 film "Donnie Darko" in the hotel room, according to a new search warrant made public Tuesday.
Joanne Witt's daughter, Tylar, and her boyfriend, Steven Colver, have been charged in the murder. Witt did not approve of the relationship, and was found stabbed to death in her El Dorado Hills home in an upscale gated community 30 miles outside Sacramento.
Prosecutors are also considering whether to charge Tylar Witt as an adult in the stabbing death. Colver pleaded not guilty at a separate hearing Monday and was ordered held without bail.
The two were arrested Wednesday at a strip mall south of San Francisco following a two-day search.
The charges against Tylar Witt are sealed because of her age. But after the hearing, El Dorado County Deputy District Attorney Lisette Suder that the Witt is charged with murder. She is also charged with battery on her mother and receiving stolen property for a May 18 incident at their home.
The coroner has not issued a cause of death, but police say it was a traumatic death and caused by a sharp object like a "a kitchen knife." Authorities have not recovered the murder weapon.
Authorities had been called to the Witts' home before. Tylar Witt was booked into a juvenile hall May 18 for assaulting her mother, according to a police report.
If convicted as a juvenile, Tylar's sentence could not go beyond her 25th birthday. If charged as an adult, Witt could face life in prison.
Witt's attorney, Mark Ralphs, declined comment. A message left for Colver's attorney at his office Monday evening was not immediately returned.
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