FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Angela Savage will be forever 24.
Gary Troutman, a two-time killer who knew Angela from the neighborhood, made sure of that.
The devoted mother of two had so many more breaths to take, so many more songs to sing and miles to walk and dreams to dream. But Troutman snuffed out her life and that of her unborn child 36 years ago, cursing her loved ones with a deep down heartache that lasts to this day.
Troutman was 24 when he raped and strangled Angela in March of 1986, dumping her lifeless body on a dirt path just blocks from her Deerfield Beach home.
Justice did not come quickly.
Troutman, now 61, wasn’t arrested for the grisly crime until 2007, when DNA evidence linked him to the murder.
He was finally sent away to prison in 2015 after taking a plea deal. His sentence: 30 years. Seven years later, he’s about to go free.
Angela’s family is reeling from the news.
The warning came in the mail, courtesy of the Florida Department of Corrections, in a letter addressed to the Deerfield Beach home of Angela’s parents. Troutman will be released from his prison cell at Everglades Correctional Institution in Miami within 90 days, the letter says. And now Angela’s family wants to send out its own warning.
Wayne Adams, Angela’s brother, contacted the South Florida Sun Sentinel to sound the alarm.
“People need to know a cold-blooded killer is going to be released back into the community,” he said. “He might be out around Christmas time. I think he was born evil, I really do. He’s going to kill someone again. That old Satan is going to rise out of him again.”
Just six weeks before killing Angela, Troutman killed teenager Cassandra Scott. A decade went by before he was convicted of that crime in 1996. He received a 25-year sentence but served only nine years because he committed the crime before 1995, the year the state began requiring prisoners to serve at least 85% of their sentences. By 2005, he was released from prison, free again.
A second judgment day for Troutman came in July 2015, when he was finally sentenced for killing Angela Savage.
Troutman only has to serve 15 years — a mere half of his prison sentence — because, once again, he committed the crime before 1995.
Troutman has been in prison seven years and spent eight years in jail awaiting trial.
“They never broke it down for us and told us he’d be getting out in seven years,” Wayne Adams said of the now-retired prosecutors who handled the case.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
With the plea deal, the first-degree murder charge was downgraded to second-degree murder. The kidnapping and rape charges were dropped.
Brian Cavanaugh, a retired prosecutor who worked on the Troutman case, said he couldn’t recall details on why those charges were dropped.
“We were thinking he’d be incarcerated for at least six, seven more years,” said Bernard Adams, Angela’s father. “To get this letter saying he’s going to be released within 90 days, we were shocked and disappointed.”
At the time of her murder, Angela had a 5-year-old daughter in kindergarten, a 6-month-old son and a new baby on the way, with big plans to marry the man who fathered her son and unborn child. But all her dreams ended with Troutman’s evil deed.
It seems unfair to let a two-time killer go free, but that’s how the American justice system works, said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University.
“Once you serve your sentence, you’re allowed to go back out in the general population,” he said. “You’re right: A murderer goes free. In our society, once you’ve paid your debt, you’re allowed to go free.”
Angela and her baby son went missing sometime after noon on March 17, 1986. She’d left her Deerfield Beach apartment to buy a pack of cigarettes, but never returned home.
The next day, Angela’s badly beaten body was found before dawn, lying on a dirt path just a few blocks from her home. She had been raped, bound and gagged. Police estimate she’d been killed between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.
Around 30 minutes after Angela’s body was found, a neighbor heard a baby crying on her doorstep. It was Angela’s son.
The murder put the community on edge. But with no leads, the case grew cold.
Then in 1994, Troutman confessed to strangling teenager Cassandra Scott in February 1986.
Angela’s family asked police to look into whether he killed Angela, too.
Detectives reopened the case, renting a billboard on Dixie Highway that asked: “Who Murdered Angela Savage?” For their efforts, they got five tips that led nowhere.
Twelve years later, in 2006, the family turned to the Sun Sentinel. A reporter started asking questions and requested any and all files on the 20-year-old murder. Within days, the Broward Sheriff’s Office reopened the case.
By 2007, detectives had what they needed: DNA evidence that linked Troutman to the crime. He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and rape.
The gold sandals Angela was wearing on the day she was murdered were missing. They turned up on the day of her funeral, hidden away in a brown paper bag left by the couch.
Her mother made the eerie discovery after the crowd of family and friends who’d come over to comfort Angela’s parents had gone home.
The family suspects it was Troutman who left the sandals behind, sneaking in with the crowd. They also think he’s the one who started calling the house asking for her, only to cackle at the stunned silence on the other end of the line.
Wayne Adams, Angela’s brother, recalls all the haunting details like it was yesterday.
“She went missing that Monday,” he said. “We found her Tuesday. We had the funeral that Saturday. It was a cold week. It was 41 degrees that morning when Troutman put the baby on the doorstep.”
Angela’s sister, Marva, saw her walking to the store that day and stopped to chat, never realizing it would be their last conversation.
About five minutes after Angela left the store with her pack of cigarettes, her brother, Ronald Savage, walked in.
“You just missed your sister,” the guy behind the counter told him.
Her brother ran outside to look for her. But she was nowhere to be found.
The family suspects Troutman had already grabbed her.
The next morning, a neighbor heard a baby crying and a car door slamming out front.
“If she had looked out the window, she would have seen Troutman,” Wayne Adams said. “She called the police. She didn’t know who the baby was. The police brought the baby to my mom.”
The day Angela went missing, her brother Wayne stopped by her house. He found her boyfriend, Dween Mitchell, reading a GQ magazine.
“I asked him where Angela was,” Wayne recalled. “He said he didn’t know. He looked very concerned. By 7 p.m., we knew something was wrong. Around 10 p.m. we called the police. They told us she had to be missing for 48 hours before they could do anything.”
Wayne stayed out looking for his sister until 1:15 a.m. Her boyfriend, parents and other siblings joined the frantic search.
At the end of the night, Wayne had a thought so chilling he prayed he was wrong.
“I thought to myself, ‘She’s dead.’”
Angela Savage, one of seven siblings, was born in Harlem in 1961 on June 26 — the same month and day as her mother. The family later moved to Deerfield Beach.
Angela loved R&B and mac and cheese, long walks and live concerts, Michael Jackson and Patti LaBelle. But most of all, she loved her family.
Wayne Adams still remembers her making meals for the family and braiding her siblings’ hair when they were kids. She was also the one her brothers went to for advice on girls, he said.
Before her murder, Angela was living in Deerfield Beach with her boyfriend, Dween Mitchell. The two planned to marry but never got the chance.
Her son, who was there at the time of his mother’s murder, is now 37 and living in West Palm Beach. Her daughter is now 42 and resides in Atlanta.
Had she lived, Angela would be 61. Her unborn child would be 35.
Family and friends now visit her in their memories and at her final resting place at Pineview Cemetery in Deerfield Beach.
Her brother, Wayne Adams, recalls her strong family ties.
“She loved kids,” he said. “If she were here today, I think she’d be taking care of her grandkids. And I think she’d be visiting with my mom. She would not have gone far from home. She loved her family.”
He misses her smile, her laugh and “that big Afro,” he said.
Days ago, he found a burgundy sweater and pink T-shirt she gave him for Christmas in 1984 sitting in the back of his closet. He tried on the T-shirt and it fit perfectly.
“After she died I didn’t wear it,” he said. “I couldn’t wear it. And I would never give it away.”
Wayne Adams and his family had the chance to face Angela’s killer during his sentencing hearing in 2015, sharing how losing Angela had forever altered their own lives.
Josephine Adams, Angela’s mother, described the pain of losing her beloved daughter — a pain she’s reminded of on every birthday.
“Today I feel she is at peace,” she told the judge. “And I won’t have to cry anymore. I will cry when the birthdays come. I know I can’t bring her back. I’m just glad she’s at peace now.”
Brother Darrel Adams told the court it’s been an emotional rollercoaster for the entire family since that day in 1986 when Angela went missing.
“Gary Troutman caused a lot of pain and tears to my entire family,” he said. “We will never get over that pain and hurt. I will never forget the hurt he has caused my family. And I hope he never gets out of prison alive.”
Wayne Adams told Troutman he stole Angela’s dreams.
“She told us she had finally met the one,” he said of Dween Mitchell. “They were going to get married. We will never see her wedding now. My family will never be the same. Angela’s death is like a deep wound that will never heal.”
As a bailiff led Troutman away, Angela’s brother Ronnie (Ronald’s twin brother) shouted in rage: “You’re an animal! I hope you rot in jail!”
A smirking Troutman cast an amused glance at the shattered family.
Seven years ago, Angela’s father described the sentencing as the final chapter of a nightmare that went on for nearly 30 years.
“It’s been 29 years,” he said from the stand. “It’s been agonizing. This is the final chapter. At least this gives a sense of closure. We won’t forget, but we can know that the person responsible for our daughter’s death is going to jail.”
But getting word of Troutman’s upcoming release was another unexpected blow, Angela’s father said this week. It’s like the whole family has been caught up in a never-ending saga over which they have no control, he said.
“Right when you feel like you’ve gotten some sort of justice, there is it again. And you’re going through it all over again,” he said. “Somewhere along the line we think the justice system failed our family.”
Moments after Troutman was led out of the courtroom, Wayne Adams told reporters he thinks Troutman will kill again if he ever gets out.
Seven years later, he still believes it.
“He will kill again, no doubt,” he said. “He had no remorse that day. It was chilling to see him walk out of court. He was smiling and laughing. And now we find out he’s about to be released. It’s like one stab in the heart after another. This community is not safe as long as a homicidal maniac like Gary Troutman is out on the streets. He hates women. And I have no doubt he will kill again.”
Bob Jarvis, the law professor, says it’s hard to say just what a convicted killer might do once they’re no longer behind bars.
“If it was a crime of passion, if they killed their girlfriend or someone who had spurned them, the chances of recidivism are relatively low,” he said. “If they killed strangers, the chances of recidivism are much higher. We can never be sure what they will do when they get out.”
