Her husband reported her missing, but police say he had already killed her, tried to hide the remains
It was unlike her to disappear without a trace.
Her twin sister and daughter told Broward Sheriff ’s Office detectives she would not leave her children or family without telling them. Wanda Gordon, 42, always hosted Thanksgiving, too, her daughter told deputies, and would not miss the holiday with family.
Ernest Gordon, 44, reported his estranged wife missing on Nov. 7. He said he hadn’t seen her for three days. The last time he saw his wife, he told deputies, was at 6 a.m. Nov. 4 when he went to work. When he returned 12 hours later, she wasn’t home.
Police say Gordon killed his wife and disposed of her body in a heavily wooded and secluded area in the 10600 block of State Street in Tamarac.
Gordon was arrested Friday in Lauderhill and charged with second-degree murder in his wife’s death.
Gordon said his texts and calls went unanswered for those few days between when he last saw her and reporting her missing. The Gordons were separated.
Wanda Gordon’s son and her sister told deputies she had plans to meet up for a date on Nov. 4 but knew nothing else, the warrant says.
The Sheriff’s Office said its Missing Persons Unit handled the case and searched for Wanda Gordon until the Homicide Unit took the investigation over on Nov. 23. That’s when inconsistencies in Gordon’s story were uncovered, according to an arrest warrant.
Detectives met with the man who Wanda Gordon had a date with on Nov. 4. Surveillance video, cellphone data and a parking receipt backed up his story, that the two of them spent several hours at Fort Lauderdale beach together, and she went home some time after midnight on Nov. 5., the warrant says.
Gordon maintained his original story from the day he reported his wife missing when he spoke with deputies a second time on Nov. 24, the warrant says, and gave a voluntary sample of his DNA along with giving consent to search Wanda Gordon’s car.
Days later, deputies learned data from Wanda Gordon’s phone shows she arrived near her home at 2856 NW Eighth St. about 1 a.m. Nov. 5. Then at 4 a.m., the device traveled from the home west toward a rural area near U.S. Route 27, the warrant says, arriving at the Broward and Palm Beach County lines about 4:30 a.m. where it stayed until 4:50 a.m.
On Dec. 1, detectives went to an area along U.S. 27 near the county line after finding surveillance video showed a white pickup truck pulling up to a construction site about 4:30 a.m. The truck was approached by a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer.
That officer, who was working an off-duty shift between midnight and 7 a.m. at the site on Nov. 5, told investigators that he stopped Gordon driving the truck, questioning what he was doing so early in the morning in a remote area. The officer noted Gordon seemed unusually nervous, according to his statement in the warrant, and had three trash bags in the bed of his white GMC truck.
The officer took photos of the trash bags in the bed, and Gordon drove off with a warning about illegal dumping. Detectives would later find signs of blood in the bed of the truck, according to court records.
The last-known location that Wanda Gordon’s phone showed was 1061 State Street in Tamarac. On the morning of Dec. 2, detectives began a search there for the phone and found it in the wooded and secluded area, along with clothing and pieces of red and black dreadlocks that she was known to wear, court records say.
Among the tree roots and leaves, detectives saw “white residue” on top of the leaves with a foul smell, indicating decomposition, the warrant says. Then, in a part of the wooded area that detectives noted was not easy to get to, detectives found what they believed to be a human lower jawbone with teeth lying in an open path of broken grass near where the phone, clothing and hair was found.
The next day, detectives found a skull that had a fracture on the left side, showing blunt-force trauma, and was a missing jawbone, the warrant says. The rest of the skeleton was found to the north of the wooded area in a field with waist-high, muddy water that made it difficult to find the bones.
DNA from Wanda Gordon’s daughter confirmed the remains were hers, court records say.
Detectives later discovered that Gordon’s cellphone data placed him in the area where his wife’s remains and cellphone were found. In searching their home, chemical analysis showed signs of blood in Wanda Gordon’s bedroom.
The Sheriff ’s Office said Gordon has denied any involvement in his wife’s death and the disposal of her body. He is being held in the Broward Main Jail without bond.