Detectives say digital evidence and witness statements tied Ronald Racki to Laikyn Marie West’s final known movements.
VENICE, Fla. — Southwest Florida detectives have charged a Venice man with second-degree murder in the 2024 disappearance of Laikyn Marie West, saying they gathered enough digital, documentary and witness evidence to move the case forward even though West’s body has not been recovered.
That decision brought a difficult investigation into a new phase on Feb. 20, when Ronald Chester Racki, 75, was arrested in connection with West’s death. West was 24 when she vanished in September 2024. The case now matters not only because of the murder charge, but because it shows how investigators assembled a prosecution from a chain of phone records, writings, images, interviews and medical documentation after a missing-person case appeared to go cold in public view.
Police said the first break was the timeline. West’s housemate reported her missing on Sept. 16, 2024, and told investigators that West had left home three days earlier after getting into a white sedan. She did not return and missed a scheduled out-of-state flight, police said. Detectives later identified Racki, who lived in Venice, as a person West knew and had arranged to meet. Records showed several calls between the two the morning she disappeared. During an interview, Racki admitted picking West up in Bradenton on Sept. 13 and driving with her to Venice. He said they had lunch and that he later took her home. Investigators said they could not verify that final claim, a gap that became central to the case.
As detectives pushed deeper, the case moved from timing into motive and method. Police said West’s journal contained an entry saying a man paid her $925 to allow him to use chloroform during sex. When confronted with the journal entry in December 2024, Racki admitted owning chloroform and said he used it for cleaning car seats, according to the affidavit. He also acknowledged paying West for sexual favors, police said. Then detectives seized his phone and held his truck and office for searches. According to the affidavit, officers found photographs of West naked and restrained with handcuffs and cable ties in Racki’s office. Needles were visible in the images, local reporting said. Those findings gave investigators a more concrete evidentiary record than a missing-person case alone usually offers, though police still have not publicly laid out a complete reconstruction of West’s final hours.
Another key step came from outside the usual crime-scene path. The day after detectives confronted Racki in December 2024, he tried to take his own life and was hospitalized, according to the affidavit. After getting a warrant for his medical records, investigators found a nurse’s note saying Racki stated, “I killed four women six weeks ago.” Police said the note described him as oriented when he made the statement, but they also emphasized that no independent evidence had been developed to confirm any other killings. That left the remark in an unusual place: important enough to become part of the probable-cause narrative, but not broad enough to support further charges. Publicly, officials stayed focused on West’s case and on the evidence they say supports that one count of second-degree murder.
The affidavit also points to a witness who may have helped fill in the physical side of the case. In April 2025, detectives interviewed a car detailer who said he cleaned one of Racki’s vehicles around Sept. 13, 2024. The detailer reported a suspicious stain on the rear floor, an unusual odor and oddly colored water after using a steam cleaner on the back floorboard. Standing alone, those details did not prove a homicide. But in combination with the phone records, the journal entry, the photos and Racki’s shifting statements, investigators treated them as part of a broader pattern. By then, the case had expanded into a joint investigation involving Bradenton police, Venice police, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the State Attorney’s Office, according to the Bradenton Police Department.
Police leaders have described the arrest as the product of patient coordination rather than a single dramatic break. Venice Police Chief Andy Leisenring said the evidence developed during the investigation supports the arrest and charge. Bradenton police, which first took the missing-person report, said their goal in every such case is to reunite families and noted that West remains missing even after the arrest. That language underscored the split reality of the case. On one side, investigators now say they can prove a homicide well enough to charge a suspect. On the other, they are still searching for West’s body, still sorting through unresolved details and still trying to provide the kind of answer that a body recovery often gives to both families and juries.
Racki was taken to the Sarasota County Jail and was being held without bond. Police said his next court date was scheduled for March 20. As the case moves into court, prosecutors are expected to rely heavily on records and testimony that show what happened around Sept. 13, 2024, and why investigators concluded West did not leave Venice alive. The legal process may also reveal whether additional forensic testing, phone extractions or witness interviews strengthened the state’s theory after the arrest. For now, the public record shows a homicide case built step by step from fragments that detectives say point in one direction.
The latest public position remains clear: Racki is jailed on a second-degree murder charge, West has not been found, and the next major checkpoint is a March 20 court appearance in Sarasota County.
Author note: Last updated March 21, 2026.