Story so far
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has continued following each development in the shocking deaths of Russell and Shirley Dermond, an Eatonton couple investigators say were killed, likely in their lakeside home inside a gated, exclusive community. Here is how the story has unfolded.
May 6 Russell Dermond's headless body is found in the garage of their Reynolds Plantation home. Shirley Dermond, 87, is missing, possibly abducted.
May 8 Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills says investigators are baffled by the crime. The Dermonds had no known enemies, nothing was missing from the home and there was no sign of forced entry. Shirley Dermond's whereabouts remain unknown.
May 9 Autopsy is conducted. Russell Dermond, 88, was likely killed before he was beheaded, according to a medical report.
May 15 Keith Dermond, the couple's 55-year-old son, told the AJC in an exclusive interview that he and his two surviving siblings had resigned themselves to the idea that their mother wouldn't be found alive. Keith Dermond said his parents were very safety conscious and religiously armed their home security system.
May 16 Shirley Dermond's body is found by fishermen in Lake Oconee. Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said she was a homicide victim.
Five miles away from her home, in the middle of Lake Oconee in waters 50-feet deep, a fisherman on Friday found the body of Shirley Dermond, the elderly Eatonton woman missing for two weeks.
It was in stark contrast to the discovery of her 88-year-old husband Russell Dermond’s body, which was left, decapitated, in the couple’s garage. Concerned neighbors discovered him 11 days ago after the couple failed to show for a Kentucky Derby party or answer phone calls.
One hidden. One exposed, in its gruesome detail, where it could easily be discovered.
“Now we know Shirley Dermond was murdered,” Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said Friday. He had expected as much, telling reporters last week that, considering there was no ransom note, no sign of forced entry and nothing stolen from the Dermonds’ lakefront home in Reynolds Plantation, he was pessimistic she would be found alive.
Sills said there was “no glaring sign of trauma” to 87-year-old Shirley Dermond’s body, which is being transported to the State Crime Lab where an official cause of death will be determined.
Investigators, however, are no closer to concluding why this elderly couple with no known enemies was targeted. Polygraph tests administered to maintenance workers with access inside the gated community, located about 80 miles southeast of Atlanta, turned up nothing.
About the only thing investigators know is that the person or persons responsible “(don’t) deserve to breathe the air of this Earth,” Sills said.
The crime has put Putnam County on edge. The sheriff said there hasn’t been a “whodunit” murder there since 2009. But this one is different, its shocking brutality and unlikely victims causing a stir locally.
“I’m confident most people in Putnam County are quite well-armed and capable of defending themselves until we get there,” Sills said.
But the discovery of Shirley Dermond’s body has at least provided some clarity to investigators.
“As bad as that was, that’s progress,” Sills said.
For one, it now appears likely the killer or killers gained access to the home via Lake Oconee. The couple’s eldest son, Keith Dermond, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution he believes his parents might have been targeted because of their location inside the exclusive Great Waters community — on a cul de sac, with no next-door neighbor.
“There is a definite probability there was a boat element” in the crime, Sills said, adding they are looking for anyone who may have seen something suspicious on the lake between May 2-3.
The sheriff said the search for Russell Dermond’s missing head will focus around the area where his wife’s remains were found. They hope on Saturday to deploy a Department of Natural Resources submarine robot used earlier in the underwater search near the crime scene.
The Dermonds were the unlikeliest of victims. They bought the lot where they would build their retirement home nearly 20 years ago, settling there in part because it was halfway between their two sons, who live in Jacksonville, and daughter, who resides in Asheville. Russell Dermond had owned a number of fast-food franchises in the Atlanta area, where they once lived.
Married for 62 years, the Dermonds, originally from New Jersey, remained active even if slowed some by age. Russell Dermond took daily walks and his wife was an avid bridge player.
The horrific nature of Russell Dermond’s death led some to speculate the mob might have been involved. But Sills dismissed those rumors. Keith Dermond, searching to make sense of the violence, speculated a cult might be involved.
The Dermonds’ three children were at their homes when they got the news Friday.
Keith Dermond told The AJC Thursday that adding to the family’s grief and anxiety was the idea that their missing mother could be alive and suffering over the nearly two weeks since their father’s body was discovered.
Upon learning of her death Friday, Keith Dermond said “We are comforted she is at peace.”
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