Serial killer’s victims include mom, nomad
When a body is found stuffed in a duffel bag, put there by a serial killer who seemed to prey on South Florida women with drug habits and a string of prostitution arrests, assumptions are easy. But who were Kimberly Dietz-Livesey, Sia Demas and Jessica Good before the lurid headlines?
Kimberly Dietz-Livesey
A 35-year-old Oakland Park resident, married and a mother of a young daughter she doted on, Kimberly Dietz-Livesey was known as Giggles in her AA group meetings.
“Kim was really smart … sweet and was always laughing,” friend Elaine Hathaway said on Tuesday. Hathaway, of Hollywood, was part of the same Bikers in Recovery meetings with Dietz-Livesey.
During her recovery Dietz-Livesey started working in a vitamin store and within weeks had moved from cashier to manager, Hathaway said: “She was sharp.”
But she relapsed, and there was a cocaine possession charge in June 2000. Two weeks later her beaten body was found in a suitcase along Flamingo Road in Cooper City.
Speaking at a news conference
Tuesday, her husband, Michael Livesey, said: “Her addiction had taken her to different places.” Hathaway recalls her friend’s funeral being packed. “She was a wonderful human being, but she struggled with addiction. The disease ... makes you do things you don’t want to do,” Hathaway said. “She should be remembered as an amazing mom. She loved her daughter. She was a happy human being. She was a bright light.”
Sia Demas
Sia Demas was a 21-year-old addict who lived in various Fort Lauderdale crack houses with her young son before her death.
Demas was discovered beaten and stuffed inside a duffel bag in the 5200 block of Southwest 31st Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, near the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office, a couple of weeks after Dietz-Livesey was found.
Demas had been released from prison less than a month before, after serving 13 months on a drug charge.
Just out of jail, Demas asked for money to buy crack, friend Joe Keane told the South Florida Sun Sentinel at the time.
“I turned her down because she refused to clean up her act,” Keane said. “She lived on the street. It’s got to be tough being in that kind of business, being a prostitute.
“I wouldn’t have tried to help her if she was a really bad person,” Keane said. “She never ripped me off, but she was a real jerk when she was cracked out. She didn’t want to change, and you can’t help someone who won’t help herself.”
Jessica Good
Jessica Good was a 24-year-old living in Pompano Beach when police say Fernandes stabbed her to death in August 2001. Fernandes then fled to his native Brazil.
A Mississippi native who spent time living in Pittsburgh, Las Vegas and Miami Beach, Good had a resume with more than 50 criminal complaints. Her final arrest for prostitution came the day before she became Fernandes’ final victim.
Broward and Miami-Dade county law enforcement officials on Tuesday said there are possibly more victims.