Three people have been arrested in connection with the Frostproof, Florida, weekend murders of three friends who had gathered for some late-night fishing.
On Wednesday, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced brothers Tony (T.J.) and William Wiggins and Mary Whittemore have been arrested and charged in the slayings. Whittemore, the department said, is the girlfriend of T.J. Wiggins.
Damion Tillman, 23, Keven Springfield, 30, and Brandon Rollins, 27, were slain just moments after gathering for some night fishing at a lake in central Florida, authorities said. They were found by the father of one of the men who managed to call for help just before he died.
Judd, who has worked at the department since 1972, described the killings at a Frostproof lake as a “massacre.” He said the men were beaten and shot.
According to police, during a search of the crime scene, detectives found a Dollar General bag and receipt dated the night of the murders, and retrieved store video surveillance showing Tillman making some purchases. Detectives spoke with the clerk, who knew Tillman as a frequent customer.
The clerk, police said, also saw the suspects in the store at the same time, and they are also seen in the video. T.J. Wiggins, according to police, was positively identified in the video at the Dollar General.
On Monday, police served a search warrant in Lake Wales, Florida, where a travel trailer was parked.
The trailer was occupied by T.J. Wiggins and Whittemore. William Wiggins, police said, lived in another trailer on the same plot.
Police said they found two SKS rifles, two Mossberg shotguns and ammunition for both in a gun safe belonging to T.J. Wiggins, a convicted felon most recently arrested in March for aggravated assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
The search warrant at the trailer also yielded ammunition that was eventually found to match shell casings at the scene of the crime.
Police said Whittemore purchased the ammunition in Lake Wales on July 9. She admitted to being with the brothers on the night of the murders.
William Wiggins admitted to seeing Tillman in the Dollar General store on Friday evening while he stood in line with his brother T.J. When they left the store, T.J. directed William, who was driving, to turn onto a particular road instead of going home.
Two trucks, occupied by the three victims, passed the Wiggins brothers on that road, at which time T.J. allegedly told his brother to follow. William stayed in the truck with Whittemore, while T.J. Wiggins, according to his brother, got out and confronted Springfield, punching him, yelling at him and accusing the victim of stealing his truck. Rollins and Tillman then got out of their truck, when T.J. Wiggins then allegedly shot all three of the men, according to his brother.
After the murders, police said the three suspects drove to a local McDonald’s, where they ordered 10 double cheeseburgers and two McChicken sandwiches. On Saturday morning, William Wiggins took his truck to a car wash in Lake Wales and washed the clay from it.
“This is a horrific scene,” Judd said at a news conference Saturday near Lake Streety, where the bodies were found. “I’ve been to a lot of murder scenes in my life, and this ranks among the worst.”
Rollins called his father, according to Fox News, after the attack. “Help,” Rollins told Cyril Rollins, according to authorities.
“I was just so upset last night, I just didn’t know what to do,” Cyril Rollins said in an interview with WFLA-TV.
“We heard some background and they fussing all that, but I left, I went on out here,” Cyril Rollins told the station. “When I got there I was looking for my son. It was a mess. I found my son. I was holding him. He was telling me what happened, but I was too shocked to know what was going on.”
Judd said this is what investigators believe happened: Tillman arrived at the lake first to meet his friends for “night fishing” for catfish. When Rollins and Springfield arrived, they saw Tillman being beaten. The attackers then began shooting them.
Rollins was still alive when the attackers left and called his father for help. His father rushed to the fishing spot about 10 minutes away, but he forgot his cellphone in the hurry to help his son. He drove to a nearby convenience store, and the clerk helped him reach authorities, but by the time they arrived, Rollins had died.
Judd also wouldn’t speculate whether the attackers knew the victims, although he also suggested it wasn’t a random attack.
“You don’t just stumble upon somebody out here. This is a dirt road, a clay dirt road, way out in the middle of what we call God’s country, on the way to a nice little fishing lake. It’s not like there’s a lot of people around here. As you can see, it’s cow pastures and lakes,” he said.
Rich Barak of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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