A Florida man accused in one of the most horrifying child-murder cases in recent memory walked into court, grinned, pleaded guilty and then made a demand that left no doubt about how he wants this case to end.

Steven Gress, 37, pleaded guilty Wednesday to kidnapping and first-degree murder in the February 2025 killing of 16-year-old Miranda Corsette.

He also waived his right to have a jury decide his sentence. Then he told the judge he wants the death penalty.

That courtroom display was not remorse. Gress accepted responsibility while still trying to distance himself from the act that ended Miranda’s life.

He claimed he did not personally kill her, even as he admitted his involvement in the events that led to her death. He also tried to shift blame toward co-defendant Michelle Brandes and suggested Miranda was responsible for failing to remove plastic wrap from her own face.

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That attempt to put any part of this horror on a 16-year-old victim is contemptible.

The New York Post reported that Gress changed his plea in a Pinellas County courtroom and waived a jury for the penalty phase. The report says a pretrial hearing in that phase is set for November 4.

Prosecutors are seeking death. Brandes has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and murder charges, and her case remains pending.

During the plea hearing, Gress admitted that he kidnapped Miranda and was involved in the chain of violence that ended with her death. He acknowledged dismembering her body afterward, but continued to deny that he personally caused her death.

The court did not sentence him Wednesday. The penalty phase will determine whether the state receives the death sentence it is seeking or whether another lawful punishment is imposed.

The guilty plea closes one part of the case, but it does not erase what police say happened to Miranda.

The St. Petersburg Police Department says in its 2025 annual report that Miranda met Gress through a social-media app and went to his home in February 2025. Detectives concluded that Gress and Brandes beat and killed her before taking her body to another location.

Police said Miranda’s body was dismembered and placed in a dumpster in Ruskin. Her remains were never recovered.

The case began to break open only after a witness contacted police with information about a possible kidnapping and homicide. Gress was already jailed on unrelated domestic-violence and drug charges when investigators added the kidnapping and murder allegations.

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There were warnings around that house. There were witnesses who knew or saw pieces of what was happening.

Yet Miranda was not rescued.

The Tampa Bay Times reported last month that Gress had been pressing to plead guilty and accept a death sentence. A judge ordered a competency review before allowing him to waive the protections of a trial and penalty-phase jury.

Gress told the court then that he did not want to sit through a trial or remain in county jail. His defense lawyer said the decision to waive mitigation and a jury belonged to Gress.

The July hearing established that the court would not accept a dramatic declaration alone. The judge first had to determine that Gress understood the rights he was surrendering and the irreversible punishment he was asking the state to impose.

Wednesday’s guilty plea was therefore not a surprise impulse. It was the result of a request Gress had been making for weeks, now accepted after the court examined whether he was competent to make it.

Now that choice has been made in open court.

But the center of this story is not the defendant’s grin, his theatrics or his preferred punishment. It is Miranda Corsette.

She was 16 years old. She deserved protection, a future and the chance to go home.

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Instead, the adults accused of imprisoning and brutalizing her turned her final days into a nightmare. No courtroom performance can lessen that evil, and no clever attempt to spread blame can make Miranda responsible for what was done to her.

The court will decide the lawful punishment after the penalty phase. Until then, the facts should remain clear, the victim should remain at the center and every person who failed to act while a child was in danger should have to answer one question: Why wasn’t Miranda saved?

 

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