It wasn't until the husband walked the length of the garage that Russell Dermond's headless body came into view. Whoever did it knew what they were doing, he said. It wasn't done in a frenzy. Gunshot residue was later found on Mr. Dermond's shirt. Sills believes he was most likely shot in the head. He thinks the head was taken, not as a trophy, but because it contained evidence — perhaps a bullet, which was never found, or DNA from the killer or killers in the form of blood or tissue.
At this point, the sheriff and his deputies had a dead husband and a possibly abducted wife on their hands. Scenarios bounced around Sills' brain like Lotto balls: Shirley had been kidnapped; Shirley had something to do with what happened; Shirley was already dead, just not in her house.
An all-points bulletin went out. Cadaver dogs were brought in. The cove surrounding the Dermonds' dock was dredged. The state Department of Natural Resources sent down "the most sophisticated underwater equipment that's available today," Sills said.
Ten days later, two fishermen made a horrifying discovery — a woman's body, floating face-down in the lake, her ankles crudely tied to cement blocks.
Decomposition and expanding gasses had sent the corpse to the surface. Sills was called. From a boat, he heaved Mrs. Dermond's bloated body from the water. She was far beyond the search area that had already been dredged.
The 5-foot, 2-inch woman's body had swelled to twice its weight from being submerged for so long. The coroner would later determine she had been dead when she went into the lake. Those wounds were vicious, Sills said, and penetrated her skull. He doesn't know where she was killed. Dermond's body was there and after he was dead, his head was removed by a knife.
Now the case was a double homicide. And the investigation turned to who would kill an elderly couple in such a strange and heinous way. Sills got little sleep. For three solid months, his department worked on nothing else. The house was scoured inch by inch. We'd do it, and I'd have my people go back and tell them to do it again. The case ate away at him during the day and invaded his dreams at night.
Sills thinks the couple knew their attackers. He thinks more than one person was involved, simply because of all the moving parts in their killings. Their jewelry was still there. Their Rolex watches were still there.
Somebody thought they had something and they didn't have it. Or they couldn't get it. Dermond, despite his age, was physically fit. His personality, as I understand it, he would not have been the type to go [down] easily.
They were from New Jersey and had married not long after he left the Navy. She was a homemaker. He was an executive at the firm that made Seth Thomas and Westclox clocks. In the s, they moved to Georgia, where Mr. Dermond acquired 19 Atlanta-area Hardee's franchises. Their two sons, Keith and Bradley, worked with their dad. The Dermonds had their million-dollar home built on the shores of Lake Oconee in the late s.
Mike Mills, the bassist and a founding member of R. She played bridge. He played golf. He later gave up the game, but remained an avid walker. She was last seen at her weekly bridge game a few days before she went missing. He was last seen walking the golf course four days before his body was discovered. They lived a very sedentary life. They went to church. Dermond played in the local bridge club.
He walked on a routine basis I've got every check they've written for the last eight years, their credit cards, everything. There's no reason that we can determine why anybody would have ill feelings for them at all," the sheriff said.
She heard Eli let out a scream, but his mom initially didn't think much of it, because he had been playing. And it was really shocking," Russell said. She thought at first that Eli had been struck with a metal rod, but as he walked closer to her, she realized what exactly it was.
Russell still isn't sure how Eli was impaled by the blade, but she said it "was scary" and "looked pretty grim. The knife became embedded in Eli's skull, with the tip right up on his carotid artery. Inside Edition. Rachel Ray Show. Around the Tiers. Southern Tier Tuesdays. Contact Us. Meet the Team.
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