DeLand, FL – The autopsy report in the death of a Daytona Beach woman found floating in the Halifax River earlier this year indicates she was beaten and strangled to death.
7th Circuit State Attorney RJ Larizza’s office released the medical examiner’s findings on Wednesday in the August 2014 death of 28-year-old Crystal C. Pifer, ruling it a homicide by asphyxiation.
That report from the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s Office – which you can read in full by clicking here – shows that Pifer was likely dead before her body went into the water and that she had numerous contusions in her face and head and more on her forearms and torso.
43-year-old Thomas A. Prins – Pifer’s boyfriend – was arrested last month in Ormond Beach after a grand jury indicted him for first-degree murder. He remains at Volusia County Jail after a judge denied him bond.
Port Orange Police Department investigators think Prins killed her sometime between August 11th and 12th during an argument on his boat as it floated on the Halifax even though Prins told a 911 dispatcher that Pifer jumped into the river voluntarily after snatching his boat keys.
Pifer’s dead body was found floating face-down by a passerby in a canal just north of the Dunlawton Avenue bridge around 7 AM on August 12th.
Pifer was the target of an unsuccessful South Daytona police search during the overnight hours before she was found dead.
According to the SDPD incident report, an officer was sent to the Riverfront Veterans Memorial Park around 10:45 PM on August 11th after Pifer and Prins allegedly got into a fight on his boat as it floated on the river.
A witness told SDPD he was paddling in his boat when Pifer jumped on board and told him her boyfriend was beating her up. Pifer then returned to her boyfriend’s boat and got into an argument as the paddler headed back to the park’s boat ramp, per the report.
The officer wrote in the report that she found the boat later on that night heading south on the ICW and could clearly hear from the shore that some sort of verbal argument was going on between 2 people on board the board.
SDPD says the officer tried to have POPD get in contact with the people on board once the boat docked, but neither police nor Volusia County Beach Safety units searching the area was able to find the boat afterward, including a helicopter from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
911 dispatchers say a call came in around an hour after the officer spotted the boat, claiming that a woman – since identified as Pifer – jumped off of a boat and was swimming towards shore.
According to the SDPD report, the person who called 911 said Pifer was a “good swimmer” and police had no indication at the time that she was either in distress or that a crime of some kind had been committed.
Thomas A. Prins (mugshot courtesy VCJ)
Crystal C. Pifer
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.