Star Tribble is behind bars for murdering her boyfriend, Tomorreio Clark, while he was sleeping at their home in Polk County, Florida.
On Feb. 22, 2016, law enforcement officers were called to Tribble’s home in the 3700 block of Imperial Drive in Winter Haven.
When they arrived, they discovered Clark’s decomposing body on a mattress next to a bullet casing belonging to a .45 handgun, which they didn’t find.
Clark, 33, had been shot in the back of the head.
The following day, Tribble was arrested and charged with accessory after the fact and giving a false statement.
She initially told detectives that she had nothing to do with Clark’s murder, and the last time she saw her boyfriend of 15 years was on Feb. 18, which is when she said she left her home.
Tribble, a certified nurse assistant, stated that Clark instructed her to take their two boys, who were 7 and 10 at the time, as well as her then-20-year-old daughter, and leave the home for a few days.
After packing some of their belongings, Tribble said she checked into a hotel a few miles away and didn’t return home until the day Clark’s body was discovered.
When she mentioned how Clark was killed, detectives were suspicious, as they claimed to have never provided Tribble with that information.
They also stated that she did, in fact, return to the home on Feb. 19 and Feb. 21 because she was captured on surveillance video.
Tribble admitted to returning home, but she said it was only to retrieve her work uniform. She also mentioned that she knew Clark was dead but had no idea who may have killed him.
Police learned through an investigation that when Tribble returned to her home in the early hours of Feb. 19, 2016, she fatally shot her boyfriend while he was sleeping.
The following morning, Tribble went to a gas station in Walton County, and it was there that she gave her daughter a bag and told her to throw it in the trash.
According to a source, Tribble’s daughter told detectives that it appeared to have contained a “heavy metal object about 8 inches in length.”
Tribble then picked up one of her friends, and they went to the Walton County Correctional Facility in Defuniak Springs to visit a man she was supposedly dating.
The next day, she drove to her brother’s home in Lakeland and asked him to help her move something at her house. Although he told the authorities that he had no idea what he was helping her with, he obliged.
Leaving her children behind, Tribble took her brother to her house. Once there, she apprised him that Clark was in the bedroom.
After he saw Clark’s body, he “asked Tribble why she didn’t call an ambulance or the police,” according to an arrest affidavit.
Tribble said the authorities would have asked too many questions, and it was also reported that she confessed to shooting Clark. She said she did it because “she was sick of him jumping on her.”
Although Tribble’s daughter told authorities that she witnessed physical violence between Tribble and Clark when she was younger, they hadn’t been violent towards each other in the days leading up to his murder.
When investigators listened to phone conversations between Tribble and the man she was seeing in prison, they discovered that they had, in the past, talked about killing Clark.
It was alleged that when Tribble’s brother refused to help her move Clark’s body, they returned to his house.
On the morning of Feb. 22, 2016, Tribble’s daughter was about to leave her uncle’s house and head to class when she realized she left her book at her home in Polk County.
As Tribble handed her the key to the house, she purportedly said, “He’s gone.”
When Tribble’s daughter went back to their house, she found Clark’s body and called the police.
Tribble was booked into the Polk County Jail, where she was held without bond. She was later charged with first-degree murder, according to The Ledger.
On Oct. 31, 2017, a Polk County jury found Tribble guilty, and a judge sentenced her to life in prison.