Slain St. Pete professor remembered for caring, selfless nature
SPRING HILL –
Maria Osterhoudt was passionate about her job, her faith and her family.
She taught Web design at St. Petersburg College for 11 years. She raised a son. She remained active in her church in Clearwater even after she moved 40 miles north.
She offered help to anyone who needed it.
That’s how Osterhoudt’s niece will remember her.
“She was loved by all her family,” said Delana Clark, who answered the door at her late aunt’s house Monday morning.
“I just don’t understand it,” she said. “We lost a wonderful woman. She was like a second mother to me.”
Alan Osterhoudt, 61, was arrested Saturday night after he called 911 and admitted to fatally shooting his wife, deputies said.
The couple lived at 7190 Raymond Place in Spring Hill. The suspect contacted the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office shortly before 11 p.m. and told the operator he and his spouse had argued that night and his anger overtook him, according to an arrest report.
During his conversation with the operator, Osterhoudt admitted he had done “the most heinous thing he had ever done in his life,” deputies said.
Osterhoudt was in front of his house when deputies arrived and was taken into custody. He said he had placed the firearm in a drawer inside the house. Deputies entered the home and discovered the body of the 65-year-old victim in the bathroom, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies said she had sustained an apparent head injury.
The suspect requested he speak to his lawyer shortly after he was arrested, deputies said.
A request to listen to Osterhoudt’s 911 call was denied because it remains part of the open investigation, said Cpl. Wendy McGinnis, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. The State Attorney’s Office could decide to release it later.
Maria Osterhoudt was a professor of Web design at St. Petersburg College in Tarpon Springs.
“Technology will not stand still and we must grow with it,” she wrote on her webpage.
Her peers said her own love of technology bled into her students and she challenged them to explore it and make it work for their benefit.
“She had creative ways to involve her students,” said Conferlete Carney, the provost at the Tarpon Springs campus.
He said the skills she taught her students easily carried over outside the classroom. She would even recruit previous students to assist her on projects – such as redesigning the college’s website or the Bilirakis Veterans Legacy Archives.
“She was a very warm and caring person,” Carney said. “She was so energetic. If you were having a rough time she would come up and put her arms around you. She lifted your spirits.”
McGinnis said her agency does not have a history with Alan Osterhoudt and neither he nor his wife appeared to have a criminal history.
Ron Williams, president of the Primrose Lane Homeowners Association, said the couple lived in the only house along Raymond Place – a small road that stretched no more than 20 yards.
Primrose Lane is a gated community nestled along the west side of U.S. 19 near Forest Oaks Boulevard.
The Osterhoudts liked their privacy and respected others’ privacy, Williams said. That didn’t mean they were unsociable. Both attended homeowners’ meetings and Maria Osterhoudt volunteered to design and publish the association’s newsletter.
“They were congenial people, particularly Maria,” said Williams. “They blended in so well with our community. There was no indication of any discontent.”
A records check revealed Alan Osterhoudt had applied for and received a concealed weapons permit in April 2005. It expired after five years and he didn’t renew it.
Clark said she learned of the shooting late Saturday night after Maria Osterhoudt’s son had called her.
She was still in a daze 36 hours later.
Clark declined to say anything about her aunt’s husband, other than she never expected him to be accused of killing her.
“It’s a tragedy for all of us,” she said.
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