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Post by kitty on Apr 22, 2015 23:38:20 GMT -5
It will soon be a year since this happened and they still don't have a clue.
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Post by Graveyardbride on May 6, 2015 11:21:17 GMT -5
Person of Interest in Dermond MurdersThe Putnam County sheriff says he has a person of interest in the murder and beheading involving an elderly couple in Reynolds Plantation last year. Sheriff Howard Sills sat down with Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne for an exclusive interview almost one year to the day after Russell and Shirley Dermond were killed.
The mystery of their deaths baffled their affluent community. Friends found Russell Dermond’s body beheaded inside his garage in May 2014. His wife, 87-year-old Shirley Dermond, was nowhere to be found. Investigators initially believed she was abducted, but nearly two weeks later, her body was found in Lake Oconee. Sheriff Sills told Winne her body had been tied down with cinder blocks. Shirley Dermond’s cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head. Russell Dermond’s head was never found and his cause of death remains unknown.
Tuesday, Sills confirmed exclusively to Winne that he has a person of interest in the case. He told Winne the person of interest is someone interviewed before. “Statements made to us, we later determined, were not completely truthful,” Sills said. Sills says he doesn’t have enough so far to elevate the person of interest to an official suspect and investigators still do not have a motive for the murders. Sills says it’s a case that weighs on his mind every day. They’re still out there and by God, they’re capable of doing anything,” he said.
Sills revealed he recently re-interviewed a close relative. “I took a firmer tone this time. This person kind of broke down. After it was over with, my personal thoughts are that she certainly didn’t have anything to do with it, but I never say never,” Sills told Winne. He says the interview yielded the name of an ex-employee with hard feelings for the couple from years ago, but after further investigation, they found out that person is dead. “That’s the way hundreds of leads in this investigation have gone,” Sills said.
Now, the sheriff says he has the name of another former employee he plans to interview. Sills says this person of interest is not deterring efforts to find other potential suspects. He says when they do, they have both physical and forensic evidence to compare to the individual.Source: WSB News, May 6, 2015.
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Post by pat on May 6, 2015 17:28:16 GMT -5
I'm not sure that I believe anything this sheriff says. The last time that he said they had new evidence, it turned out to be nothing. Now that a year has passed, he claims that they have a suspect, which is a big coincidence.
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Post by Sam on May 7, 2015 4:40:26 GMT -5
I thought from the first that the sheriff wasn't going about things the right way when he wouldn't call in the GBI. It seemed like he wanted all of the glory for himself. He might have a suspect, but he also might be just making a statement so that people won't think that he doesn't know anymore today than when the murders happened.
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Post by kitty on May 7, 2015 23:16:31 GMT -5
A LOT of people don't think that he's handled it right.
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Post by Joanna on Oct 27, 2015 4:09:37 GMT -5
Georgia Beheading Murders Still a Mystery It was a crime so brutal, so shocking, so unexpected. An elderly couple murdered in their waterfront home in the Lake Oconee community. Shirley Dermond was found weighted down beneath the water, while her husband, Russell, was decapitated.
“Why do you take somebody’s head off?” Jacksonville State University professor and former death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan asked. “What are you trying to do? Send somebody a message to peripherals, to friends or associates? This is a warning, or is this someone who is a raving psychotic?”
It’s a gruesome crime scene, but one that could lead to an answer. “I’m not going to tell you we don’t have forensic evidence, because we do,” Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said. The only way forensic evidence can make a difference is if it is matched to a suspect ... and so far, there is only one.
“We have a witness who saw a man in the yard on the day we believe the murder occurred,” Sills added. That man, however, has not yet been identified. At this point in the investigation, several questions continue to drive the mystery, e.g., how did the killer gain access to the home?
“They had a big lake view from the porches,” Charles Mittelstadt said. “A tremendous property with a tremendous access to the lake.” In front of the home, a dock (above) for a boat provided access without going past gated security or surveillance cameras.
“I believe there is a water vessel involved in this,” Morgan admitted. “I believe it’s the only way you could facilitate this thing.”
But the biggest question remaining is why kill this elderly couple? “Unless there is some animosity by somebody here we don’t know about and they were targeted for something that happened in the past,” Sills explained. “It has to be some sort of a robbery or robbery slash extortion.”
If this theory holds, nothing has yet been uncovered to figure out the exact nature of this extortion plot. With this mystery being so violent and so brutal, until these questions are answered, and this mystery solved, the community along Lake Oconee remains at risk. “Whoever did this is still out there,” Sills reminded us. “And they’ll damn sure do it again.”Source: WXIA, October 26, 2015.
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Post by Sam on Oct 27, 2015 22:26:23 GMT -5
Last May, Lee posted an article where the sheriff said that he was questioning a former employee, but this article doesn't say if that person is still a suspect or not. Even if the sheriff does have some kind of evidence, this could turn out to be one of those cases that's never solved.
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Post by pat on Oct 28, 2015 17:35:46 GMT -5
I'm beginning to think that the sheriff is just saying that he has a suspect or evidence when he really doesn't, just to make people think that he's making progress.
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Post by Graveyardbride on May 6, 2017 10:01:32 GMT -5
3 Years Later and Dermond Murders Remain UnsolvedThis month marks the third anniversary of the murders of Shirley and Russell Dermond. Both in their late 80s, their bizarre and frightening deaths shook their exclusive neighborhood at Lake Oconee and saddled investigators with a murder mystery that remains unsolved.
Russ Dermond, 88, was found dead by friends who had dropped by to check on him and his wife the morning of Tuesday, May 6, 2014. His headless body was lying in a pool of blood in the couple’s two-car garage. The body of Shirley Dermond, 87, was discovered floating in the lake five miles by boat from her Carolyn Drive home in the posh Great Waters subdivision, which lies about a dozen miles northeast of downtown Eatonton.
In a candid, wide-ranging conversation, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, who has led the double-homicide investigation from the outset, sat on his back porch, fired up a cigar, shared theories and discussed new avenues he plans to explore in the search for the Dermonds’ killer – or killers. At one point, Sills wondered who might have singled out the Dermonds and killed them in such a grisly fashion. Russ Dermond’s head has never been found. Shirley Dermond, beaten to death, perhaps with a hammer, had 30-pound concrete blocks weighing her down when fishermen found her body.
Why would someone have done such a thing? “This crime,” the sheriff said, “screams out for an enemy – a vicious enemy.” But who that might be is nigh impossible to fathom. No one who knew the couple has mentioned any enemies. They were friendly and well-liked at their church – the proverbial down-to-earth couple. The Dermonds, New Jersey natives, had lived in Georgia since the 1980s after Russ Dermond retired from a New York-area clock company to operate a chain of metro-Atlanta Hardee’s franchises. The couple moved to the lake in the early 2000s.
Sills doesn’t believe the killings were random and that the Dermonds were probably “targeted.” The sheriff, speaking of the as-yet-unknown assailant and that assailant’s grisly deeds, said, “Somebody else knows they did this.” But so far, somewhat to Sills’ chagrin – he admits not cracking the case is “somewhat embarrassing” – no one has come forward with so much as a scintilla of a promising tip. Source: Joe Kovac Jr., The Macon Telegraph, May 5, 2017.
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Post by aprillynn93 on May 6, 2017 17:26:18 GMT -5
I bet that either Dermond's head was used as proof he had been killed, or the killer kept it as a trophy.
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Post by kitty on May 6, 2017 21:17:33 GMT -5
I bet that either Dermond's head was used as proof he had been killed, or the killer kept it as a trophy. Either that or it's at the bottom of that huge, deep lake. Heads don't float and fish would have soon eaten all of the flesh off of the skull.
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Post by jason on May 8, 2017 8:22:18 GMT -5
There are a lot of way out theories about this case, but if it's ever solved, I'll bet the killers turn out to be right there in that gated community.
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Post by Graveyardbride on May 12, 2019 23:26:28 GMT -5
Five Years Later: Dermond Murders Still UnsolvedThe mystery of what happened to Russell and Shirley Dermond continues to haunt the small gated Great Waters community in Eatonton, Georgia. On May 6, 2014, Russell Dermond’s headless corpse was discovered between two cars in the garage of his home. The 88-year-old man’s head has never been found. There was gunpowder residue on his collar, an indication he was shot. It is generally believed the killer (or killers) removed Dermond’s head so the bullet, or bullets, could not be recovered. Ten days later, his wife’s body was pulled from Lake Oconee. Two concrete blocks were attached to her corpse and it was determined she died of blunt force trauma to the head. There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle in the couple’s immaculate home.
Sheriff Howard Sills, who has worked in law enforcement for 40 years, admits the case still baffles him, calling it “a yoke around my neck.” He the Dermonds were killed by two or more individuals, possibly motivated by money or valuable items they believed the pair had inside their home.
Sills also admits the case is no closer to being solved than it was five years ago. “Five years ago, we were running hot leads and things like that,” he recalls, “and we’re not running that now. That doesn’t mean, though, that we’re not following up on leads. We still aggressively pursue anything that’s plausible ... if it’s anything at all, we’re jumping on it and we’re jumping on it, aggressively.” He desperately wants to know who committed these heinous murders and why. “It’s the most frustrating case I’ve ever had,” he adds. “I know people get tired of hearing me say that I wake up every morning and think about it and I go to sleep thinking about it. I do this every day.”
The sheriff’s office contacted the FBI for assistance and the agency brought in its specialized behavioral unit to create profiles of the killers. “The bottom line of the profile that was worked up was that it was a male subject who probably liked guns and knives and things like that,” Sills relates. “Well, guess what? That’s everybody in Georgia pretty much, certainly in middle Georgia. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the fact that the BAU looked at this case and gave us some good questions to ask when we formulated questions to ask people. But the profile just fits so many people.”
Though the FBI wasn’t much help, Sills is positive Shirley Dermond’s body was disposed of by boat. The couple, however, didn’t own a boat, so it’s unknown where the killers obtained their boat.
According to Sills, there were at least two or three, possibly more, crime scenes. “We don’t know where all the crime scenes were in this case and that’s been a big problem,” he continues. “One was the water where Mrs. Dermond’s body was recovered, which is certainly not the best crime scene. And number two is the house where Mr. Dermond’s head was removed postmortem after he was dead.” However, because of the nature of Shirley Dermond’s murder, there was no physical evidence left behind, leading Sills to believe she wasn’t killed in the home. “Her injuries were such that there should have been physical evidence left behind that simply wasn’t there,” he adds. It’s also possible Russell Dermond wasn’t murdered in the home either. “They could have been killed in the same place, but obviously I don’t know. The only certain evidence is that after Mr. Dermond was dead, his head was severed in that garage. That’s the only evidence in that house .... It does not appear from a physical evidence standpoint that they were murdered there at all.”
The last time Russell Dermond was seen alive was a few days earlier, on May 1, when he traveled to and from the store and bank. The surveillance videos from the two locations reveal he transferred money, picked up a prescription and bought bread and cucumbers. In the video, he’s wearing the clothing authorities found when they searched the home.
Before dinner that night, the Dermonds spoke to their son by phone and a few days later, the pair were scheduled to attend a Kentucky Derby party. They failed to appear and on May 6, a concerned neighbor checked on the couple and discovered the body. Sills believes Russell Dermond was killed sometime between 4:30 p.m. on May 1 and 6 p.m. on May 4, the day they were supposed to attend the party.
For the Dermond family, it has been five years of heartbreak. Brad Dermond, their youngest child, confirms his parents were private people and that they adored their children and grandchildren. “Both her and dad, total family people,” he says. “Their favorite time was to spend time with the family and grandkids .... [They were] just the most wonderful people you’d ever want to meet.”
As the family struggles to come to terms with the unsolved murder, Brad Dermond indicates he’s certain of one thing: that Sheriff Sills can and will solve his parents’ murders. “If there’s somebody who’s going to get this thing solved, it’s going to be him,” he adds.Sources: Samantha Maffucci, Your Tango, May 10, 2019, and The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
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Post by kitty on May 14, 2019 13:39:12 GMT -5
There are still people who say that the Dermonds were involved in something illegal, or someone else was living in the house with them. Even their own family always talk about how "private" they were. Why? I don't think I've ever read about another case where it's always pointed out that they were "private" people like it is with the Dermonds.
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Post by LostLenore on May 14, 2019 16:43:18 GMT -5
There are still people who say that the Dermonds were involved in something illegal, or someone else was living in the house with them. Even their own family always talk about how "private" they were. Why? I don't think I've ever read about another case where it's always pointed out that they were "private" people like it is with the Dermonds. I know some people who lived at Great Waters when this happened and they said that everybody who knew the Dermond couple thought they were odd because they would accept invitations to other people's houses, but never invited anyone to their house. When the Dermonds invited people to something, it was always held at the clubhouse.
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