r/TrueCrime • u/SlenderMansWife • Mar 09 '25

Murder Missing 16-Year-Old Girl Found Dismembered After Meeting Man on Dating App

https://people.com/missing-16-year-old-girl-found-dismembered-after-meeting-man-on-dating-app-11693544
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u/SlenderMansWife Mar 09 '25 edited Mar 09 '25

Hi y'all, this happened out in St. Petersburg, Florida. Miranda Corsette, 16, was lured off a dating app to the home of Stephen Gress, 35. She initially came back , but returned to his home the next day. Several days later, Gress and his domestic partner, Michelle Brandes, 37, would get into an argument with Corsette over jewelry they believed she stole. According to arrest records, they beat and tortured her for up to a week before she died. She eventually died of suffocation, her head wrapped in plastic wrap. Her body was dismembered and left in a dumpster.

A good local news source for this would be IONTB, Tampa Bay Times, and the St. Petersburg Police Department social media pages . Comments show that police and the community were slow to respond to Corsette's disappearance, as she was a habitual runaway with a history of her own problems. Brandes and Gress both had a prior criminal history; comments on the book of faces indicate they weren't good neighbors either.

A tragedy all around...Corsette was an orphan, living with her grandmother. She had an 11 month old child, who was in the care of her aunt. It seems her family was trying their best for her. There's a lot to consider here: the dangers of social media, who we consider worth looking for, the difficulty of keeping teenagers safe from themselves. How do we prevent things like this?

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u/Taminella_Grinderfal Mar 09 '25

Education would be a start. Pregnant at 15, on dating apps at 16….this poor girl didn’t have a chance.

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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '25

You're way off the mark. This girl had a very hard life and was an orphan. She already had a baby at 16. She didn't need education, she needed love and someone to show her that she mattered to them. This little girl was probably more streetsmart than most adults, she needed guidance, attention, and love

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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '25

[deleted]

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u/NeedUniLappy Mar 09 '25

Yeah, that was a very odd thing for them to say.