Grindr, an LGBTQ dating app, is being sued by the estate of a Florida kid who was allegedly tortured and died after meeting a man on the app.
“Endured relentless physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the Grindr user,” a copy of the federal civil action filed in Florida Middle District Court said of 16-year-old Miranda Corsette.
According to Pinellas County court documents, police have identified the guy as 35-year-old Steven Gress, who is currently being held pending trial on charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping.
In the event that a jury finds Gress guilty of murder in connection with Corsette’s death, the State’s Attorney’s Office has filed a motion declaring that it will pursue the death sentence.
According to the civil lawsuit, Gress “savagely beat [Corsette], targeting her body with such ferocity that she was left battered, swollen, and unrecognisable.”
Then, according to authorities and the civil complaint, Gress and his girlfriend killed Corsette after torturing her for a week.
“On or about February 24, 2025, [the victim’s] life was brutally extinguished when at the Grindr user’s direction, a pool ball wrapped in a sock was shoved into M.C.’s mouth and, with the pool ball in the mouth, M.C.’s head and face were wrapped in Saran Wrap, obstructing her airways and suffocating her,” according to the civil lawsuit.
The lawsuit also states that: “This final act of violence, suffocating a defenceless minor child already broken by days of torture, was the culmination of a week-long torture caused and set in motion by Grindr’s dangerous sex hook-up app that ensnared the child into a deadly trap.”
The estate cites nine grounds of action, including carelessness, deliberate and negligent infliction of mental distress, wrongful death, involvement in a sex trafficking venue, and unfair and deceptive commercial practices, for which damages are sought.
“Grindr’s negligent conduct directly set in motion the chain of events that exposed M.C. to danger,” according to the civil suit. “The acts of M.C.’s attacker were not independent of Grindr’s wrongdoing but were facilitated and made substantially more probable by Grindr’s deliberate failure to implement meaningful safeguards against underage access and exploitation.”
Gress allegedly admitted to punching the youngster after believing she had stolen his ring in an interview with police from the Saint Petersburg Police Department.
He also stated that he begged Corsette to return his ring, but she would just “mock him,” according to a copy of the probable cause affidavit that was submitted with the case.
Gress eventually called his 35-year-old girlfriend, Michelle Brandes, and requested her to assist him in getting his ring back. According to the complaint, Gress and a third roommate who frequently visited the house believe that Brandes killed the girl when she started beating Corsette as well.
“Brandes took a ball from a pool table in the backyard, put it in a sock and shoved it down Corsette’s throat and then wrapped her face in plastic wrap,” according to the affidavit. “Gress stated that he told Brandes not to cover the nose, but Brandes did and he couldn’t get to Corsette quick enough to poke holes in the plastic before she died.”
According to the warrant, the third flatmate also told police that Gress was “very abusive” and “would find disadvantaged women and girls who were either homeless or addicted to drugs” while attempting to pick up women.
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“She felt Brandes had taken the ring in order to get Gress to not like the girl because she was jealous,” the warrant said, citing the third roommate’s statement to police.
According to the warrant, the third flatmate accompanied Gress, Brandes, and Corsette’s body to Brandes’ mother’s house on February 23. Gress allegedly dissected and beheaded Corsette’s body there, and Brandes put the remains in garbage bags.
The third roommate told officers requesting a search warrant that on February 24, the three went to a Popeye’s restaurant and a miniature golf course to celebrate Brandes’ birthday while Corsette’s remains were in the car’s trunk.
The three then dumped the body in a skip, the complaint states.
The teen’s body could not be recovered since the skip had been emptied and its contents had been burned when the police discovered this.
“This desecration of M.C.’s body has left her family in profound anguish, robbed of the ability to lay her to rest or find closure through a proper burial,” as per the lawsuit.
