The sheriff leading the investigation into the gruesome slayings of an elderly Eatonton couple said he believes the victims knew their killers.
“They were at least minimally acquainted with whoever did this,” Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. “That’s an assumption, coupled with some physical evidence.”
Two fishermen recovered the body of 87-year-old Shirley Dermond — missing for two weeks — Friday afternoon near Wallace Dam in Lake Oconee. She had been dumped in one of the deepest parts of the lake, but was discovered hung up in the underwater tree line. Her 88-year-old husband’s decapitated body was found May 6 in the garage of the couple’s home, located about 80 miles southeast of Atlanta. His head remains missing.
Sills said he is certain the killers accessed the Dermonds’ property by water. Both the sheriff and FBI profilers who have examined the case believe there are at least two people involved in a crime that’s riveted middle Georgia and beyond.
Surveillance cameras on and off the lake may end up providing some much-needed leads. Sills said some video footage captured May 2 and 3 has been sent to the FBI for further examination.
Over the weekend, investigators met with than 200 neighbors of the Dermonds who live inside the Reynolds Plantation Great Waters community. Sheriff’s deputies and federal agents, using a questionnaire prepared by the FBI’s behavioral science unit, quizzed them about everything from their security cameras to the habits of their maintenance workers.
“We weren’t questioning people as suspects,” Sills said, “but we might develop one out of it.”
No one has been ruled out, save for some yard workers who have been interviewed and, in some cases, polygraphed, he said.
“I’ve put a lot of people in my scope, but none in the cross hairs,” Sills said.
That includes the Dermonds’ three adult children.
“I’ve never eliminated them,” he said, though he cautioned there’s no evidence linking them to the slayings.
The sheriff has all but eliminated the idea that some sort of ritualistic cult was involved.
“If that was the case, they’d want us to know,” he said.
Much is still up in the air, the sheriff said.
“For everything that looks professional, there’s something that isn’t,” Sills said. “This is not the work of some drug-crazed individuals, and this is not some professional assassin.”
Nothing has surfaced that would indicate the Dermonds ever associated with such people.
“I’ve looked at every check he’s written the last 10 years, every credit card receipt, and there’s nothing that looks out of the ordinary or unusual,” Sills said.
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