Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Timothy Eugene Thomas, 33, has been indicted for the 2010 murder of 16-year-old Sebastian Ochsenius.
On June 29, 2010, an intruder entered the Ochsenius home through a sliding glass door at about 3:45 a.m. and shot Sebastian, who had been playing video games with a friend in his family’s home in the neighborhood across NW 43rd Street from the Millhopper Branch Library. Sebastian’s friend said Sebastian had gotten up to walk to the kitchen, then gunshots rang out and he and Sebastian’s father rushed to Sebastian, who died a short time later; they told responding officers that they didn’t see the shooter.
Alachua County Sheriff Emery Gainey said the agency is looking for help from the public in identifying a short Hispanic woman with a “heavy build” who would be in her early 30s now and may have loaned a car, a white or cream-colored Kia Sportage, to Thomas.
New evidence surfaced in 2020, and interviews have been conducted around the state since then; the nature of the evidence has not been made public, but on December 14, 2023, the Alachua County Winter Term Grand Jury indicted Thomas on charges of homicide while engaged in trafficking and armed burglary.