Georgia police are awaiting DNA results in the hope that the tests can help them solve a gruesome double-homicide that has baffled authorities for over a decade.
In May 2014, police made a horrifying discovery: Russell Dermond, 88, was found beheaded inside his garage. Dermond's head and his 87-year-old wife, Shirley, were missing. Initially, police believed Shirley might have been kidnapped, but 10 days later, she was found floating in Lake Oconee. Someone had tied her ankles to cinder blocks and thrown her in the lake, 11 Alive reported.
Dermond's head has never been recovered.
Last year, when the FBI chose to revisit the homicides, Special Agent Andy Smith called the double homicide "one of the strangest cases that I've seen," Atlanta News First reported.
Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills told Atlanta News First that DNA labs found material tied to the murders and that it had been determined that the DNA did not belong to the victims.
"I'm waiting on the results of whatever they have," Sills told Atlanta News First. "Hopefully we'll be able to submit it to CODIS [a national criminal DNA database]. If there's no hit there, I'm hoping we can get it into the genealogical database."
The couple were married for about 64 years and were described as being extremely private. Their home sits on Lake Oconee, somewhat isolated. "It's the horror that they must have gone through... that's what's so difficult to overcome," Brad Dermond said in an interview with 11 Alive in 2019.
The station reported that the last time Brad talked to his father was May 1. That's also the day that surveillance video at a store showed Russell Dermond buying some items. It is the last known sighting of Russell or Shirley, 11 Alive reported.
Nothing was taken from the house and no money was taken from their bank accounts. The couple had no known enemies, the station reported. The family was ruled out as suspects in the case.
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