Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies have made an arrest in the death of a missing Port Orange woman, Danielle Santangelo.
Willie Hicks, 32 of DeLand was arrested late on Wednesday night and charged with first degree murder, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said.
Santangelo was reported missing to the Port Orange Police Department on Monday, November 8th. During their investigation, police discovered the car she was last seen in, a red 2007 Chrysler Sebring, in a wooded area off of Darchelle Court and Cherry Street, just south of DeLand about 3:50 pm, on Wednesday.
A body of a woman was found inside and was later identified as Santangelo by means of a tattoo and her driver license photo. There was trauma to the woman’s body. Detectives are not releasing the nature of the trauma and the cause of death until an autopsy is performed by the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Following up on phone record leads during the investigation, Sheriff’s investigators talked to Hicks’ mother, Rose Hicks, who informed them that she had seen her son in the red Chrysler Sebring on Monday, but never saw Santangelo.
Hicks lived in an apartment next door to his mother’s home at 546 West Euclid Avenue. Rose Hicks told detectives that she had heard what sounded like the moans of a woman in pain coming from the apartment that her son kept locked. Rose Hicks said she saw Willie Hicks late Monday night in a backyard shared by her house and the apartment. He was carrying bloody clothes in his hands and burned them in a “burn barrel” in the backyard. She said that Willie Hicks told her he had put a woman in the red car and didn’t want anyone looking inside.
Detectives say they do not anticipate any more arrest in this case, although the investigation remains active to learn more about the sequence of events.
Willie Hicks was booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach.
