Authorities accuse two men of rape, torture, murder

Scott Paul Schweickert

Another arrest has been made in the deaths of two Tampa men.

On Thursday, DEA agents arrested Illinois resident Scott Schweickert, charging him with being an accessory after the fact in a drug death.

Last year, agents put Schweickert's friend, Steven Lorenzo, in jail and charged him with drugging and raping several Tampa men.

In an affidavit, an agent details more than 20 Internet chats between Schweickert and Lorenzo. In the chats, the men discussed drug-assisted torture and bondage of both gay and straight men.

Investigators believe Schweickert traveled to Tampa to fulfill his fantasies.

Police say that on December 19, 2003, Schweickert met Jason Galehouse at a Tampa bar and lured him to Lorenzo's home for consensual sex.

Lorenzo allegedly put Galehouse in a sleeper hold and killed him. Schweickert said they then dismembered Galehouse's body and discarded the pieces in trash bins around Tampa.

Investigators say that the next night the two men went to the same club and looked for another victim. They found Michael Wacholtz. They brought Wacholtz back to Lorenzo's home, where Lorenzo allegedly raped him and knocked him out with an ether-soaked rag.

 

With Schweickert's help, Lorenzo allegedly bound Wacholtz and lay on top of the 26-year-old man until he apparently suffocated.

Deputies later found Wacholtz's jeep abandoned in a Hillsborough County apartment complex. Wacholtz was dead inside the jeep.

The affidavit stunned friends of the dead men.

"I don't know what to say about the affidavit, about the statements," said Eric Bunch, a friend of Galehouse. "I'm still pretty much shocked right now. You never expect to hear that about someone you love very much."

Friends of both men believe there are more victims.

"In my heart I believe whoever did this to Jason, if it is indeed these two guys, that they are responsible for the other missing men," said a friend of Galehouse.