A Brevard County man was convicted Monday of second-degree murder for the shooting death of a woman he had dated who was found burned and dismembered in an unincorporated part of rural Palm Bay.
Jurors took three hours to come back with a guilty verdict for Daniel Stearns, 35, of Palm Bay in the 2023 death of Indian Harbour Beach mother Nancy Howery, according to a press release from the State Attorney’s Office for the 18th Judicial Circuit.
Stearns was charged with second-degree murder, abuse of a human body and tampering with or destroying evidence, with verdict coming after a five-day trial.
In February 2023, he and the 44-year-old Howery were dating, but he was upset that she wouldn’t date him exclusively, according to the release. Evidence showed Stearns arranged to meet Howery, shot her in the head with a handgun, dismembered her, burned her body and buried her remains in an unincorporated area west of Palm Bay called the Compound.
On Feb. 18, 2023, Howery’s ex-husband reported her missing after she failed to pick up their children from schools in Satellite Beach, according to the State Attorney’s Office. Officials found her abandoned Honda minivan in Southwest Palm Bay the next day.
Within a week, agents from the Brevard County Sheriff’s Department put Stearns under surveillance. They detained him as he was disposing of something from a bucket along the C-54 Canal. After searching his truck, they found shovels in the bed, and a K9 specializing in human remains detection alerted to the presence of decomposition in those areas.
Other evidence included skull fragments from the burial sites and a woman’s finger matching a known print from Howery.
Stearns faces life in prison with his sentencing scheduled for Dec. 3.

