Cemia ‘Cece’ Dove, Carl Acoff: Transgender Woman’s Pond Murder On TV One Tonight

The case of Cemia “Cece” Dove and Andrey Bridges will be featured tonight on TV One’s Fatal Attraction. Cece Dove was a transgendered Cleveland woman who was found floating in a pond in Ohio two years ago in Olmsted Township. Andrey Bridges was the man who killed her.

Here is some case background.

On April 17, 2013, a neighbor found what looked like a mannequin floating in the pond. Puzzled, the man threw a stick at what he thought was a mannequin and observed “oils” seeping out of the crotch area. Police investigators were dispatched to the scene.

Once police arrived at the location, they observed that the body was that of an African-American male dressed as a woman. According to The Plain Dealer, the man was wearing a black hoodie, a pink Betty Boop tee and three bras — one with stuffing. The victim was naked from the waist down.

There was also a black and orange rope tied around the victim’s chest and pelvis area. The black and orange rope was linked to a yellow rope that had one end of the rope tied to a steel pipe, and the other tied to a cinder block, according to case documents.

A Cuyahoga County autopsy concluded that the transgender victim had died of multiple stab wounds to the body. Police were able to trace the death to a missing persons case from January. The body was identified as Carl Edward Acoff, Jr., aka Cece Dove.

Dove had gone missing months earlier after leaving her mother’s home. According to prosecutors, a man who had hired Cemia “Cece” Dove as a prostitute killed her in a crime of passion after he found out that she was a man.

The case started in January, 2013, when family members noticed that she had gone missing. She was last seen by her mother leaving her home on the morning of January 3.

According to Dove’s mother, she knew that her Cece was transgendered but often referred to Dove as her son. She was unaware of Dove’s secret life, and had no knowledge that her son worked as a prostitute.

When Cece Dove didn’t return home, a police report was filed. But, with no information and no leads, the case went cold. Three months later police got their break when a body was seen floating in the pond in the same location where the victim was last seen. Police also found a hospital bill near the grassy area close to the pond that was addressed to a man named Andrey Bridges.

Police began canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone had seen the victim in that area months earlier. Neighbors told law enforcement authorities that they had observed the woman in the photo get out of a taxi cab and go into one of the apartments. Once police contacted the renter of the apartment, they were informed that the person had subleased the apartment to Andrey Bridges, and that he had been staying in the apartment at the time of the young woman’s disappearance.

Not only that. The two men, identified as Jason Quinones and William King, informed police that on January 5, they had come to the house to pick up the rent money but observed Andrey Bridges outside burning something in a pit. They told police that his eyes looked “crazy,” and that a bleeding wound on his hand was apparent.

When the men suggested going inside the apartment, Andrey insisted that they should not. They went inside anyway. And what they saw was shocking. According to Jason there was blood on the walls, on the floor, and on the staircase.

When they asked Andrey what happened, he stated that he had been in an altercation with someone at the home. His story changed several times, leading the men to believe that something terrible had happened at the location. Still, they kept the information to themselves until they were contacted by police.

Detectives eventually tracked down the taxi company that drove Cece from her home to Olmsted. That was the last time anyone had seen her alive. Prosecutors believed that Andrey Bridges killed Cemia after discovering that she was in fact a man. He was arrested and charged with murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse. He was convicted in November, 2013.

***The descriptions provided in the article on based on court testimony and court documents.

View the trailer for the Cece Dove Fatal Attraction episode entitled ‘Deadly Secret’ here

“Cece Dove was a vivacious young woman looking for love. But when she mysteriously disappears, investigators can’t help but wonder if her online dating profile could have landed her in the hands of an internet predator. And when, on the other side of town, the body of a male is discovered, the victim of a heinous murder, investigators make an incredible discovery causing the cases to collide in the most shocking of ways.”

TV One’s Fatal Attraction will air the Cece Dove, Andrey Bridges murder case on Monday at 9 p.m. central.

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