GULFPORT — Police arrested a 34-year-old St. Petersburg man May 26 in connection with a 2020 investigation into a body found in a burned car on the Pinellas Trail.
Andy Rozell Bryant was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on one count of arson in the second degree and one count of abuse of a dead human body. Bail was set at $500,000.
Gulfport police said Bryant was not charged with homicide since the investigation, along with the autopsy and toxicology reports, does not support that charge. Detectives say the investigation shows that the victim, Jesus Manuel Tavarez-Soto, 55, died from other means.
Bryant is accused of disposing of the body by placing it in the trunk of a 2014 black Nissan Sentra, registered to the victim, and then burning the car. Gulfport detectives say Bryant told them he had found the victim diseased and had disposed of the body.
Police say based on the condition of the skeletal remains found in the trunk, there was no evidence of trauma at or around the time of death, according to a forensic anthropologist. The medical examiner has listed the cause and manner of death as undetermined.
A bicyclist found the burned car on the Skyway Trail, which is part of the Pinellas Trail network, near the Twin Brooks golf course about 6 a.m. Sept. 21, 2020.