Pool Ball in Throat, Tortured, Chainsawed: Chuckling Murderer Asks Judge for Death After Grisly Murder of Teen Girl 20 Years His Junior

One of two defendants in a Florida murder case has not only pleaded guilty to the crime, he’s asking to be executed for his role in it.

Steven Gress, 37, entered the plea on Wednesday, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Gress and co-defendant, Michelle Brandes, 38, each face a first-degree murder charge in the 2025 murder of 16-year-old Miranda Corsette. The cases are being tried separately.

“I feel it’s the right thing to do,” Gress said in court, according to the newspaper.

“I would like to plead guilty to felony murder. I did not kill Miranda, but I was involved in certain things that led to her death.”

🇺🇸 A killer pleaded guilty to torturing and dismembering a 16-year-old girl he lured through a dating app, then asked the judge to sentence him to death.

Steven Gress, 37, and his partner, Michelle Brandes, beat and tortured Miranda Corsette for a week over an allegedly stolen… pic.twitter.com/4uqjD9pdCT

— NewsForce (@Newsforce) August 21, 2026

Dr. Mark Crawford, a court psychologist, said Gress “can freely and voluntarily enter a plea, and his decision is not contaminated by any mental illness.”

Gress was “very open, very respectful, very cooperative” during their time together,  Crawford said, according to the report.

The plea makes a trial to establish guilt unnecessary. However, a penalty hearing is scheduled for November where Judge Philip Federico will hear testimony before deciding on sentencing Gress to life in prison or execution.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Gress met the girl on the dating app Grindr in February of last year. He picked her up at her grandmother’s home in Gulfport, Florida, a city near St. Petersburg. He then drove her to the apartment he d with Brandes in St. Petersburg, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

There, he accused Corsette of stealing the ring. Both he and Brandes beat and tortured the girl for a week, according to the newspaper.

GUILTY: Steven Gress, the man who murdered and dismembered a 16-year-old Gulfport girl after days of torture, has pleaded guilty to the crime. https://t.co/tEfH84Zi3m pic.twitter.com/tEURgYsAS5

— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) August 19, 2026

Officials have said multiple people knew Corsette was being held and abused in the days leading to her death.

“Three people, including Gress’ mother, later told police that he had sent them photos of the girl that showed her nude, bruised and in increasingly worse physical condition,” the newspaper reported.

Gress has alleged that Brandes eventually forced a billiard ball into Corsette’s throat then covered her face in plastic wrap. He has said he was unable to save Corsette.

The couple allegedly took the victim’s body to Brandes’ mother’s home in Largo, Florida. There, Gress allegedly dismembered the body with a chainsaw. Corsette’s remains were later put in a dumpster, the contents of which officials believe were incinerated.

Gress and Brandes each blame the other as having been the lead in the abuse of Corsette, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

In court on Wednesday, Gress said he did not have all the responsibility for Corsette’s death.

“She stole my ring; I wanted to get my ring back,” he said. “I would like to say that I do believe that she killed herself, and I say that because she had the Saran Wrap on her face, but she was free to pull it off her face.”

Brandes later said she found the ring in Gress’ car, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Gress said he would “accept responsibility” for his part in the girl’s death.

“Life or death is a lose-lose,” he said as he chuckled in court, according to the report. “I would rather do the lesser time incarcerated than the next 53 years of my life incarcerated.”

Brandes has not yet been tried. She has a hearing scheduled in October.

A witness told police, “she felt Brandes had taken the ring in order to get Gress not to like the girl because she was jealous and went on to say that Gress and Brandes had beaten Miranda, eventually killing her,” a search warrant stated, according to WJLA-TV.

“Gress stated his goal was to get his ring back and send Corsette home in [a] couple of days after she healed up,” the warrant said. “Gress stated he even bought her sore throat spray because Brandes had choked her out.”

Defense attorney Anthony Rickman called Gress’s plea “very unusual,” according to WTVT-TV.

“Ultimately, in these cases, we see defendants fighting for their life,” Rickman said, who is not connected to the case. “Here, we see the defendant asking for death.”

Even if Gress is sentenced for execution, however, it’s not likely to come quickly, Rickman told the station.

“Just because he says he wants to be executed, just because he is ultimately sentenced to death if he is, it’s not going to happen quickly,” Rickman said. “We know the process of ultimately executing somebody is going to take years.”

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