Who is Storm Royal Thayer? Man, who fatally stabbed Alisha Gomez, 31, over 150 times, gets life in prison
WALTON COUNTY, FLORIDA: A 25-year-old man in Florida has been sentenced to life in prison after he viciously attacked a sleeping woman he barely knew. Storm Royal Thayer stabbed the woman more than 150 times.
The victim Alisha Gomez, 31, begged and pleaded for her life before dying in his father's living room. Circuit Court Judge Kelvin Wells on Tuesday ordered Thayer to serve the maximum sentence of life in prison.
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According to authorities, Alisha Gomez was killed in the summer of 2021. Thayer had previously pleaded not guilty to one count of second-degree murder in connection with her death as per Law and Crime. Gomez as per court documents had moved to Florida along with her friend to find jobs in the service industry. It was during the height of the pandemic, they wanted to better their lives with stable jobs.
As per the report, through her work, Gomez met Royal Thayer's father, Robert Thayer, and eventually moved into a mother-in-law suite on the property. Royal Thayer resided in the main house. On July 2021 Storm Royal attacked her as she went into a main house after her air conditioner broke, falling asleep on the couch.
Thayer stabbed Gomez more than 150 times, according to the memo from the prosecution. According to authorities, Thayer covered up the murder by unplugging the home security system, washing the clothes he was wearing, and taking a sharp-bladed object, possibly the murder weapon, out of the house after the killing.
After that, according to the prosecution, the report mentioned, he traveled by car to the Gulf of Mexico and Choctawhatchee Bay in the Florida Panhandle before coming back to the crime scene. Prosecutors stated in a sentencing memo that he had five felony convictions and that his actions had grown increasingly violent over time.
“Initially, the defendant was committing burglaries but soon elevated to striking a victim in the face with a shovel while at the beach,” prosecutors wrote. In 2019, prosecutors claimed he served prison time for child abuse-related charges. In her victim impact statement, Tiffani Nielsen, Gomez's sister stated that at the time of her death, her sister was dating Thayer's father.
“I ask how this could have happened, and by someone she barely knew, while the person she was dating was sleeping right there in the same house,” Nielsen wrote. “I think about how the cameras picked up ‘cutting sounds’ and how terrified my sister must have been being stabbed over 150 times until her neck was ‘pulpified.'"