Vacation Murders: The Oba Chandler Case

“On this day, November 15… Florida put an end to one of the most disturbing vacation murders

in American history.” “A mother… and her two daughters… tied, weighted, and thrown alive

into Tampa Bay.” A man who turned what should’ve been a peaceful family vacation into a

nightmare that haunted two states for decades. In the summer of 1989, Joan “Jo” Rogers

and her teenage daughters, Michelle and Christe, left their Ohio farm for their very

first trip to Florida. They were excited. They were lost. And they made the mistake of asking

the wrong man for directions. Police later learned that man was Oba Chandler.

Three days after the family vanished, boaters spotted something floating in Tampa Bay.