FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 1, 2013

Brevard County Grand Jury Indicts Former Cocoa

Man, 87, for 1988 Murder of Wanda Reapp

            The Brevard County Grand Jury issued a first-degree premeditated murder indictment April 30, 2013, against Benjamin Reapp, 87, for the 1988 murder of his wife, Wanda Reapp. The crime had remained unsolved for nearly 25 years.

            In August 1988, Benjamin Reapp appeared at the doorstep of a Cocoa couple and told them to call police because he and his 52-year-old wife had been abducted outside a Mister Donut shop in Cocoa.  He said he was beaten, and the stranger drove off with his wife. Deputies found her body a short time later. A recent three-year long investigation conducted by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit resulted in the indictment, said Assistant State Attorney Michael Hunt.

            The grand jury heard testimony from a Brevard County Sheriff’s Office homicide agent, the Brevard County Medical Examiner, and one lay person. Reapp is currently in the state Department of Corrections completing a three-year sentence on a lewd and lascivious conviction on a child under the age of 12. That crime occurred in Highlands County. It is uncertain when Reapp will have an initial appearance on the murder charge in Brevard, Hunt said.