Margo Delimon, a 39-year-old white female real estate agent, was living in Clearwater, Florida, when she mysteriously vanished on October 3, 1981. She had been scheduled to show homes to prospective buyers that morning, but when the clients arrived at the office, they found her car parked outside—yet Margo was nowhere to be found. Known for her punctuality and professionalism, her absence immediately raised concern among her coworkers.
After two days of failed attempts to reach her or her estranged husband, Bob, a missing person report was filed.
Investigators learned that Margo had been experiencing marital difficulties. Her husband, Bob, was out of town in New York at the time of her disappearance and passed a polygraph test, which led authorities to explore other leads. They discovered that Margo had planned a date with a man named Don the night before she vanished, but he canceled and stayed home with his wife. He too passed a polygraph test, leaving detectives without a clear suspect.
Three weeks later, a couple fishing along the Withlacoochee River in Citrus County stumbled upon a decomposing, headless body. Initially, the remains were not identified as Margo’s. Over the following months, investigators began to suspect a serial killer might be targeting women in the area, as several had gone missing under similar circumstances.
A breakthrough came three months after Margo’s disappearance when a female realtor in Orlando was abducted by a man posing as a client. She managed to escape when he stopped for gas, and the suspect was arrested following a police chase. He was identified as James Delano Winkles, a resident of Pinellas County with a history of fraud and violent behavior. Winkles had previously attempted to sell land that did not belong to him—the same land where the headless body had been found.
Despite being convicted for the Orlando abduction, Winkles refused to speak about Margo’s case. Then, on May 24, 1982, a couple picking blackberries discovered a skull with three vertebrae attached on their property. DNA testing eventually confirmed that the vertebrae matched the body found in the river, and the skull was identified as belonging to Margo Delimon, the 39-year-old white female victim.
Years passed without further developments until February 1998, when Winkles, already serving a life sentence plus 90 years, contacted authorities and confessed to abducting and murdering Margo Delimon. He revealed that he had lured her under the pretense of viewing property, then took her to his grandmother’s vacant home. There, he held her captive for several days, repeatedly sexually assaulting her. Fearing she could identify the location, he forced her to ingest a lethal dose of sleeping pills. After her death, he buried her body near the Withlacoochee River, later exhumed it, removed her head, and extracted her teeth to hinder identification.
Winkles was indicted in March 1999 for the murders of Margo Delimon and another victim, 19-year-old Elizabeth Graham. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death in 2003. He died in prison in 2010, having claimed responsibility for dozens of other murders, though none were conclusively verified. Margo Delimon’s tragic death remains one of the most chilling examples of how vulnerable professionals in the real estate industry can be to predatory violence.
