FBI expands Billy Mansfield search in Hernando County cold case

Investigators shifted the Billy Mansfield search area to Dry Creek Ranch Road and Sunshine Grove Road on Tuesday after Mansfield provided information suggesting there may be additional victims whose remains have not been found. The renewed work put Hernando County back at the center of a case that has shadowed Spring Hill for decades.

The search involved the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI Tampa field office, Florida Gulf Coast University and the State Attorney’s Office. Vehicles were staged near Sunshine Grove Road as cadaver dogs and investigators worked the area, signaling a serious excavation effort rather than a routine sweep.

Deputies had already searched near Fort Dade Avenue and Citrus Way, but that pass did not produce evidence. Investigators then reassessed the case files and moved farther north and west, where they believed the odds of finding buried remains might be better.

Mansfield is already serving four life sentences. Authorities say four women’s bodies were found on his Spring Hill property in 1981, after the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office received a tip that a body was hidden beneath the home. The property sits near US-19 and Forest Oaks Blvd., and the original discovery made the case one of the county’s most notorious homicide investigations.

Sheriff Al Nienhuis has said investigators are close to identifying a fourth victim found in 1981, adding a fresh forensic angle to the renewed search. Theresa Caroline Fillingim was later identified through DNA as one of the women recovered from the property, work that drew on help from the University of North Texas and Parabon Nano Labs.

The latest excavation comes nearly 45 years after the bodies were first uncovered and reflects how cold-case work can change when prison interviews or new tips generate leads decades later. In Hernando County, the question is no longer only what Mansfield did in the 1970s and 1980s, but whether the landscape still holds evidence that can identify victims and close gaps in the historical record.