Jacksonville Man Gets Life for Killing Neighbor Who Lived on a Boat, Then Burning and Burying His Remains

A Jacksonville man who for a year denied knowing what happened to a missing neighbor has been convicted of killing him and sentenced to life in prison. A Duval County jury found Reginald Dwayne House guilty of second-degree murder and abuse of a dead human body in the death of Philip M. Curtiss, and Circuit Judge Anthony Salem sentenced House at an Oct. 8 hearing to life in Florida State Prison followed by an additional 15 years, State Attorney Melissa Nelson's office announced.

Curtiss, 44, was reported missing to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office on Nov. 25, 2022. His remains were not found until nearly a year later, when House, already in jail on unrelated charges, led investigators to the spot where he had buried them, according to the Office of the State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit.

The case is the second Jacksonville-area cold-case homicide the Fourth Circuit has closed in eight days. On Oct. 1, the same office announced that a Middleburg man had pleaded guilty to the 1987 killing of Missy Ellison.

A man living on a boat

At the time he disappeared, Curtiss was living on a boat behind House's residence, investigators learned. Reports at the time of House's arrest placed the property in the 1700 block of Starratt Road in the Oceanway area of Jacksonville's Northside.

Detectives from the sheriff's office Missing Persons Unit began investigating after the 2022 report. Investigators came to believe Curtiss had been killed, and House was a suspect, but there was not enough evidence to arrest him, and the case went unsolved, the State Attorney's Office said. According to News4JAX reporting in 2023, a search of the property and surrounding woods at the time turned up nothing, and House told police he had moved.

In May 2023, House was arrested on unrelated charges, which News4JAX reported were attempted murder charges. Detectives interviewed him again about Curtiss, and he continued to deny any involvement, prosecutors said. Around that time the case was transferred to the sheriff's office Cold Case Unit, Action News Jax reported in 2023.

A jailhouse confession

The break came in November 2023. While House was still incarcerated, detectives interviewed him about an unrelated matter. The next day, an informant told police House had confessed to killing Curtiss and burying his remains, according to the State Attorney's Office.

When detectives interviewed House again, he admitted confronting Curtiss inside House's home over an alleged theft and beating him in a bathroom, prosecutors said. According to the State Attorney's account, House admitted punching Curtiss several times and pouring bleach on his body. He told investigators he then burned the remains in a barrel and buried them in an empty lot.

House agreed to take police to the location. There, investigators found the remains and some of Curtiss' belongings, the State Attorney's Office said. Reports at the time described the site as a field in the 200 block of Elm Street, in Jacksonville's Brooklyn neighborhood, miles south of the Starratt Road property. The Medical Examiner's Office later positively identified the remains as Curtiss.

Investigators also located a witness who had been in the bathroom when House beat Curtiss, and that witness provided details to police, prosecutors said.

House was arrested on Nov. 13, 2023, on charges of murder and abuse of a dead human body, while he was already being held at the Duval County Pretrial Detention Facility. He was 45 at the time.

Timeline of the case

The investigation stretched across nearly four years from Curtiss' disappearance to House's sentencing, according to the State Attorney's Office and reports at the time of the arrest.

The verdict and the sentence

The case went to trial before a Duval County jury, which convicted House of second-degree murder, a first-degree felony in Florida punishable by up to life in prison, and abuse of a dead human body, a second-degree felony that carries up to 15 years. Judge Salem imposed the maximum on both counts, ordering the 15-year term to follow the life sentence.

Second-degree murder under Florida law covers an unlawful killing committed by an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind, without a premeditated design. Prosecutors did not need to prove premeditation for that charge.

The case was investigated by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and prosecuted by Assistant State Attorneys Trey Atkinson and Lauren Anderson.

The State Attorney's release spells the victim's first name two ways, "Philip" in its headline and "Phillip" in its text. The sheriff's office and the Medical Examiner's identification reported at the time of the arrest used Philip M. Curtiss.

How informants and cold-case work close Jacksonville cases

The Curtiss case followed a pattern familiar in long-running homicide investigations: a suspect identified early, too little evidence to charge, and a break that came only after the suspect was jailed on something else. Jail informant information is often treated cautiously by courts and defense attorneys because informants may expect favorable treatment. In this case, prosecutors said, the informant's account was followed by House's own admissions to detectives, the recovery of the remains at the place he identified, and testimony from a witness who was present during the beating.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office has leaned on its Cold Case Unit in several recent prosecutions. The Fourth Circuit's Oct. 1 announcement in the Ellison case described a guilty plea and a 24-year sentence for the 1987 killing, closed nearly four decades after the crime. The Curtiss case was far newer, but it sat unsolved for roughly a year before House's confession.

What's next

House will be transferred to the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections. He may appeal his conviction and sentence to Florida's First District Court of Appeal, which hears appeals from Duval County; a notice of appeal must generally be filed within 30 days of sentencing. The State Attorney's Office did not indicate whether House has filed one, and it did not report the status of the separate charges on which he was jailed in 2023.

House's defense attorneys have not publicly commented on the verdict or sentence.