Lisa Marie Simpson left home with songs running through her head.

She aimed to sing karaoke Friday night, a favorite past time for the 35-year-old mother of four.

"She was supposed to call for a ride (home), and she never called," her sister, Sharlet Boschen, recalled Sunday.

By Saturday, with no sign of Simpson, Boschen and her family went looking for Scott Dykstra.

So did police.

Boschen and her father found him first, sitting in the corner of a local bar.

The two did not yet know what the police did: that Simpson's body had already been discovered by the side of a dirt road in Port Richey.

Something stirred in Simpson's father as he and Boschen coaxed Dykstra out of the bar and into their car.

"My dad said . . . 'I could tell that man killed my baby,' " Boschen remembered.

Moments later, delivered into the hands of authorities about 1 a.m. Sunday, Dykstra was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Simpson, his estranged wife.

"Somehow," Boschen said, "my dad found the strength not to kill him."

Violence marred marriage

Violence plagued the relationship between Simpson and Dykstra, 37, a Hudson man with a long criminal record.

"Scott was in jail within a month of their marriage on domestic violence," Boschen said.

Simpson married Dykstra in April 2002, her sister said. Her maiden name is Boschen, but she kept the surname of a previous husband.

Simpson and Dykstra had known each other for more than a decade, circulating with the same friends. Simpson liked heavy metal music. Dykstra had played in a heavy metal band.

She separated from him a year ago after he violated his probation and was returned to jail, according to her family and authorities.

Dykstra was released from custody about three weeks ago.

He wanted to reconcile with Simpson, said Terry Overton, a former member of Dykstra's old band, Sloppy Jo Mama.

He was broken up about the news of his friends, both of whom he loved, he said.

Overton had lost touch with Simpson. But he and a friend tried to convince Dykstra to move on without her.

"He was looking to work it out with her when he got out," Overton said. "We told him he should stay away from her."

Chance meeting

Simpson did not know that Dykstra was looking for her, Boschen said about her sister.

Simpson lived in a New Port Richey apartment, raising her two daughters while her sons were raised in Spring Hill by their father from another relationship.

"She was my friend, she was the coolest," 15-year-old daughter Kristy Trammell said in their apartment Sunday.

She and sibling Cecilia Trammell, 17, sobbed as their aunt talked about their mother. Sitting nearby were Simpson's other children, 14- year-old Michael Trammell and 12-year-old Nicholas Trammell.

"Everybody loved my sister," Boschen said.

In two years, Simpson worked her way up from dishwasher to cook at the Clarion Hotel on U.S. 19, she said. Simpson would hit different pubs on karaoke night, just to sing her favorite Beatles songs, including I Saw Her Standing There.

Angelique, the waitress at German Affaire, on Massachusetts Avenue remembered a cheerful Simpson from Friday night, Boschen said. It's where Simpson's family had dropped her off to sing. The waitress also remembered that Simpson left in good spirits with two men.

Boschen later sought and found Dykstra at The Coral Reef in New Port Richey. She asked him to go with her to German Affair, which he did, Boschen said. The bartender there did not recognize him as one of the men with whom Simpson had left, Boschen said.

Boschen filed a missing persons report. Unknown to her, Simpson's body had been found about 11:30 a.m. Saturday on Limit Drive near Oelsner Drive in Port Richey. The Port Richey police and Florida Department of Law Enforcement were working the case.

Authorities told Boschen to call them immediately if she found Dykstra again, she said.

She called her father, Raymond Boschen, who lives in Hudson with her mother, Barbara. Father and daughter searched again, finding Dykstra slumped in the corner at Freddy's Bar in New Port Richey.

He allowed the Boschens to drive him to Sims Park, where law enforcement waited, she said.

Dykstra was charged with first-degree murder, said FDLE spokesman Rick Morera. He remained in Land O'Lakes jail Sunday with no bond. Dykstra confessed to killing Simpson, Morera said, though neither he nor Port Richey police would say how or where she was killed.

Boschen said authorities told her that her sister was choked to death and that she and her friends from the bar ran into Dykstra at a grocery store. They all returned to the friends' house, but the friends fell asleep. When they woke up, Simpson and Dykstra were gone.

Boschen hopes to start a trust fund at People's Bank on Ridge Road to help with expenses. She and Simpson's children and friends were still in shock that the cheerful woman was gone from their lives.

"He took Lisa," Boschen said, breaking into tears. "It wasn't her time to go. She has a full family to raise."

Copyright Times Publishing Co. Dec 9, 2003

The morning after suffocating Lisa Marie Simpson and burning her body, Scott Dykstra told a friend of his crime, according to a Pasco County Sheriff's Office search warrant.

Dykstra, who is facing a charge of first-degree murder in his estranged wife's death, had been living at another friend's house on Gladdin Avenue in Hudson. He and Simpson had a troubled relationship. They had married in April 2002, but Simpson separated from him a year ago after he went to jail for violating his probation.

The search warrant for the Gladdin Avenue house, owned by Mike Wiley, gives the following information about events before and after Simpson's death:

On Nov. 27, the night before Simpson was killed, she and Dykstra had been with Shawn Conner and Amanda O'Hara at the Gladdin Avenue home. Conner told investigators that the couple had been arguing and then left to buy cigarettes.

Conner and O'Hara fell asleep, but Conner awoke about 6:30 a.m. Nov. 28 to find Dykstra getting out of the shower. Conner told investigators that Dykstra was visibly upset. When Conner asked what was wrong, Dykstra said he murdered Simpson, according to the warrant. Dykstra, 37, allegedly described how he suffocated 35-year- old Simpson with a pillow, then took her body to a spot near Green Key Beach, doused it with gasoline and set it on fire, according to the warrant.

On Nov. 28, Officer Jeffrey Kay of the Port Richey Police Department responded to the crime scene on Limit Drive in Port Richey, saying it smelled like lighter fluid. At first, he thought the body was a burnt mannequin.

Conner called the Port Richey police later that morning. Officers set up a tap on Conner's phone and taped a call from Dykstra. In it, he tells Conner not to tell about the murder and to keep O'Hara quiet, as well, according to the warrant.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement took a pillow and pillow case, fiber evidence and swabs of blood from the Gladdin Avenue house where Dykstra had been staying.

He is being held without bail at the Land O'Lakes jail.