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Note in accused killer's car led authorities to Hernando park ranger's body

 
Jeffrey Morrison
Jeffrey Morrison
Published Nov. 15, 2018

A man who told authorities in June that he'd killed his girlfriend, a Hernando County park ranger, left a note in his car that led authorities to the woman's body, according to newly released court documents.

Jeffrey Morrison, 42, was arrested after turning himself in, two days after 43-year-old Mitzi Babb went missing. Her body was found the following day, June 22, in a waterway in Camden County, Georgia, north of Jacksonville. After being held for several months on arson and burglary charges in central Georgia, stemming from an incident in the days between Babb's disappearance and his arrest, Morrison was charged on Oct. 5 with murder.

Morrison turned himself in at an agriculture station in north Florida's Hamilton County and confessed to killing Babb before asking for an attorney, according to an arrest affidavit released after a grand jury in Georgia indicted Morrison on Nov. 7. Investigators from the Hernando County Sheriff's Office arrived after Morrison's arrest, and while looking through the window of his Kia Soul, saw a note on a piece of cardboard.

"Mitzi Babb is off the southbound side of the overpass of Crooked River on I-95," it read, according to the affidavit.

Investigators searched the area by plane the next day and found Babb's body in the area mentioned in the note. She was identified by her tattoos. She died by strangulation, according to the affidavit, the first public release of her cause of death.

Morrison's case has been assigned to a judge but no court dates are set, according to the clerk of superior court for Camden County. The first court date likely will be in 2019.

RELATED: Daughter, friends remember slain Hernando park ranger, a 'bright, burning ball of fire'

Contact Jack Evans at jevans@tampabay.com. Follow @JackHEvans.