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welcome to true crammed garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
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grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] on Tuesday May 6th 2014 at 9:58 a.m.
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Peggy Wynn called Putnam County Georgia 911 phone of a house she was in when Putnam County picked up the call Peggy
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is breathing hard she tells them there's an emergency she thinks someone is dead she goes on
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to tell them the house in which she is calling from is 1 for 7 Caroline Drive in great waters she is
00:04:29
calling from the home of Russell and Shirley Durman Peggy explains that she is a neighbor of the Dermot's and she
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went to their home to check on them because they have been missing for about four days are they in the house she is
00:04:47
asked yes I am she replies and then Peggy can be heard shouting oh my god hysterically Putnam County wants to know
00:04:59
if they are both dead and if Peggy found them both no Peggy explains it's just one I don't know where the other one is
00:05:12
she is told they are sending a deputy and an ambulance over there just in case Peggy thinks the operator and hangs up
00:05:22
the phone on the call the dispatcher could hear Peggy talking to someone in the background who sounded like he was
00:05:31
saying she's not here or there's no one else here somehow the 911 operator interpreted that there were multiple
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bodies on the scene she dispatched deputies and an ambulance to respond to one four seven Caroline
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Drive saying that a woman called 911 she didn't know how many were dead Peggy Wynne and her husband later told
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Putnam County Sheriff Howard sills the following the winds who were in their 70s were friends with
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Russell and Shirley Durman they weren't next-door neighbors but they lived less than a mile away within the same upscale
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gated community called great waters on Lake Oconee in the state of Georgia the wins hosted a Kentucky Derby party on
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Saturday May 3rd at their home the durman's were expected to attend but never showed
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Peggy called the Derman home a few times over the next couple of days but there was never any answer and she started to
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grow concerned enough that on Tuesday May 6th she made her husband accompany her over to the Durman home they knocked
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but received no response and finding the front door unlocked they went inside they looked all through the pristine
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home which was over 3,000 square feet and saw nothing on their first pass the husband even glanced into the closed
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attached garage and noted that the couple's two cars were parked in their spots determined to look more thoroughly
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the husband made a second pass in the house and actually stepped down the three stairs into the garage to check
00:07:35
out the cars they're behind the pale blue Lexus SUV in the Lincoln Towncar he was confronted with the most
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horrifying scene imaginable on the garage floor lying behind the cars lay the blood-soaked body of a man lying in
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a dry pool of blood whether or not it was his friend Russ was unclear the body lying on the garage floor had no head 87
00:08:13
year-old Shirley durman was gone so was the head belonging to this body [Music] before we get into the meat of this case
00:08:44
it's crucially important to convey an understanding of the setting because the nature of the location figures heavily
00:08:52
into the story Reynolds Plantation is an upscale lakefront resort community roughly 80 miles southeast of Atlanta
00:09:00
Georgia it's divided into several smaller gated developments with multiple golf courses and a lakefront
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ritz-carlton all in all Reynolds Plantation is over 1500 residences with the great water
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subdivision where the Durman home was being the most exclusive great waters it's built around a Jack Nicklaus design
00:09:23
Golf Course and was a gated community with 600 residences the durman's built their retirement home toward the back of
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the development at the end of a cul-de-sac overlooking Lake Oconee the house was situated so that the house
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fronted on the lake and the front lawn sloped down to the home's dock the part of the house that faced the
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driveway was the back of the house this is a very heavily wooded area it was not
00:09:50
at all open to the street or even clearly visible to neighbors on the other side and across the street was
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just woods it was secluded just the way the durman's liked it the area was extremely safe with not so much as a
00:10:04
burglary and sheriff's sales to decade tenure up until 2014 now Lake Oconee is not a small lake in fact the 30 mile
00:10:14
lake encompasses 19 thousand acres and has 374 miles of shoreline it is a man-made lake created by the building of
00:10:24
a dam across the Oconee River Lake Oconee is so huge that it touches four different counties construction of the
00:10:32
dam flooded the area included wooded regions so that in parts of the lake underwater trees are visible the lake
00:10:40
sees a huge boating scene in the warmer months there are boat rental facilities public
00:10:46
boat launches fishing Outfitters and every home has a dock this is a very large house although there are many
00:10:53
year-round residents including retirees and families one-third of the homes in the subdivision are occupied only
00:11:00
seasonally the summer season traditionally the population of mostly rural Putnam County doubles too close to
00:11:07
45,000 people now the man in charge of the investigation is sheriff Howard sills
00:11:14
he's the elected sheriff of Putnam County who has served in that role for 25 years he is a cigar smoking cowboy
00:11:22
boot wearing no-nonsense lawman a criminal justice major in college trained at the FBI Academy and he has
00:11:30
been in law enforcement for about 45 years as of may 6 2015 2 1 of this investigation he has solved every murder
00:11:41
case and has sent five killers to death row this is not a situation where the sheriff is a local yokel who Boches
00:11:49
investigations right this guy sells is the man I watched a lot of interviews of sheriff sales he's very Tommy Lee Jones
00:11:58
you know like in in No Country for Old Men type thing I didn't kill my wife I don't care
00:12:06
sheriff sills was at the home 1 for 7 Caroline drive very quickly when responding to that 911 call he later
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admitted expecting to find a murder-suicide first thing he looked over the decapitated body that lay on
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the garage floor between the cars the man's faded red t-shirt was partially pushed up his blue and white
00:12:27
striped boxer shorts drenched in dried blood a bunched up bathrobe lay under the body
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the man's bare feet were blood-stained there was a dull red trail of blood which sill says showed that the body had
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been moved a few feet a pair of LL Bean slippers lay nearby the corpses hands were bruised and bloody the left index
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finger had a severe - all the way onto the palm of the hand so defensive wounds yes the head had
00:12:58
been cut off along the line of the t-shirt collar in several what he describes his clean cuts so whoever did
00:13:05
this he says knew what they were doing based on information obtained from Russell durman's driver's license the
00:13:13
body belonged to him that's what the sheriff figured right and a positive identification would later be made on
00:13:21
the garage floor was quite a bit of dried blood with a large pool of blood and bodily fluids near the top of the
00:13:28
body strangely several towels lined the garage door crack where the door met the
00:13:34
ground next to the left side of Russell's body as if someone had ensured that the blood
00:13:40
would not seep under the door and out onto the driveway outside so a sign of premeditation well a sign of wanting to
00:13:49
conceal this body as long as possible to the outside world right to the right side of the body where more towels
00:13:56
clearly intended to soak up the excess blood it was determined that the towels were from a bathroom in the durman's
00:14:03
home just behind the lincoln sheriff sills found a blood spot on the garage floor as if something round had been
00:14:12
placed there later he said that it was larger than a head would be I know that's a pretty grotesque description
00:14:20
there but these are his words and his his assessment of the crime scene the rest of the house was in pristine
00:14:27
condition the 3200 square foot four bedroom tan stucco house was neat orderly dirt and dust free an unfinished
00:14:37
USA Today crossword puzzle was sitting on the kitchen table folded with the pencil still placed on top and a
00:14:45
prescription with Shirley durman's name on it was on the counter next to a Netflix movie return mm-hmm open laptop
00:14:53
was on the dining room table with a pair of glasses inside an open case nearby other than the garage nothing whatsoever
00:15:01
appeared to be disturbed there was no forced entry we know the winds found the door
00:15:06
unlocked there was no sign of any kind of struggle or altercation and nothing appeared to have been stolen
00:15:13
Shirley's two handbags with cash and cell phone were still on her vanity Russell's wallet and cell were also in
00:15:22
the home a Jewelry bag lay in plain sight the only things missing was Russell's head and Shirley Dermott so we have no
00:15:30
sign of a struggle we have no sign of a break-in mm-hmm we have no sign that anybody took anything
00:15:38
of value right so kind of rules out robbery it could be a robbery gone bad and then we find Russell but we do not
00:15:48
find his wife mm-hmm it's a very weird situation and also I think what is not found in the home is key here so the
00:15:58
house was dusted for prints but if Tech's found any interesting prints they were not released they've not released
00:16:04
that information right the entire house was checked over using luminol and no blood whatsoever was detected other than
00:16:12
in the garage but even there there was no spatter or spray just the pooled blood around Russell's body no weapons
00:16:20
of any variety were found sheriff sills has remarked that they did find some forensic evidence but we don't
00:16:28
know what that is or whether it has proved at all useful despite sheriff sills dragging the lake
00:16:35
area around the durman's dock and grid searches with dogs looking in nearby woods nothing else was found because a
00:16:43
perpetrator could be coming by car or foot or possibly by boat yes the house would have been accessible by boat a
00:16:52
full-scale investigation into the disappearance of Shirley Derman was launched boats searched in nearby areas
00:16:59
of Lake Oconee using the latest sonar equipment and even a submersible robot but this turned up nothing cadaver dogs
00:17:07
failed to hit on anything near the house the FBI was called in to help in the search for the likely abducted woman and
00:17:16
billboard's went up all over the area to publicize her missing status meanwhile an autopsy was performed on
00:17:25
Russell's body which wasn't that badly decomposed even though it's estimated that he was dead for several days the
00:17:32
garage and the Derman home was air-conditioned so this slowed this process down the GBI
00:17:38
medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was cranial cerebral trauma because there was no evidence of any
00:17:45
fatal injury to the body everyone was extremely relieved to learn that Russell had not been decapitated while he was
00:17:53
still alive with sheriff sills concluded based on the lack of arterial blood spray evidence in the garage or anywhere
00:18:01
else for that matter some kind of traumatic injury had been inflicted on Russell's head killing him now without
00:18:07
his head it could not be determined for certain what that injury was but the autopsy noted specifically that the
00:18:14
decapitation was the result of a clean cut through the vertebrae and spinal cord leading SILS to conclude that it
00:18:22
had likely been done with a very sharp blade and it happened in the garage wall right and they don't have his head they
00:18:30
have his body and we don't have wounds on the body that would make us believe that's how he died so they just have to
00:18:37
assume that the injury happened to his head sheriff sills was operating under the
00:18:43
assumption that Shirley Derman had been abducted and was in danger he considered
00:18:49
it was possible that Shirley was involved in Russell's murder but what cells was able to determine from the
00:18:56
crime scene led him to discount this theory pretty quickly right first of all Shirley Derman was 87 years
00:19:03
old and she had physical infirmities that prevented her from easily handling stairs or walking down to the lakefront
00:19:10
from the house so the idea that she did this by herself that she managed to kill
00:19:17
and decapitate her husband move the body and then disappear with the head on foot
00:19:21
with none of her personal effects just seemed I mean almost an impossibility so who were the durman's
00:19:30
Russell was born in 1925 in Hackensack New Jersey old Hackensack yeah he attended college and he served in the
00:19:39
Navy he was a world war two veteran after the war in 1950 he married Shirley who was born in 1926 also in New Jersey
00:19:48
she attended Barnard College in New York Russell worked as an executive at the general time Corporation the company
00:19:56
this company made clocks the durman's had four children Brad Keith Mark and Leslie they moved to
00:20:04
Atlanta in nineteen in the 1980s Russell retired from the corporate world at age
00:20:10
58 and branched into fast-food franchises and one time owning nineteen Hardee's locations in 1998 he sold the
00:20:19
business off to two of his sons who had been employed by their father's business
00:20:24
and he and Shirley moved to their dream house on the lakefront at Lake Oconee Russell was a regular golfer and Shirley
00:20:33
played bridge and enjoy gardening they had a dock in front of their house as as did the others but they sold their boat
00:20:40
in 2012 remember we stated that Shirley was having trouble getting down to the lakefront this looks to me like a
00:20:47
situation where an older couple might be downsizing a little bit yeah and close boats are a lot of work yeah does ask me
00:20:54
I'm a captain I love boats but they're a big pain in the ass both were active in their church had
00:21:01
friends in the community and were known to be just nice normal folks many happy summers were spent with their kids and
00:21:08
grandkids at their house on the lake let's go through the last sightings of the durman's on Thursday May 1st 2014
00:21:18
Russell ran some errands in town we know from surveillance footage exactly where Russell went and what he
00:21:25
did at 2:15 p.m. Russell transferred money for an upcoming long-term care insurance
00:21:32
premium via the drive-through lane at the Lake Oconee People's Bank he then traveled to the nearby Publix a grocery
00:21:41
store arriving at two 26 p.m. to pick up a prescription for Shirley he also picked up a loaf of
00:21:49
bread and a few cucumbers he stopped and chatted with the gentleman in one of the
00:21:53
aisles then he checked out and he walked out of the store now also on that Thursday May 1st Shirley attended her
00:22:00
twice weekly bridge group at 12:30 p.m. sometime before dinner the durman's son Brad spoke to his parents on the phone
00:22:09
like most days he said they just chatted about how their day went on Friday May 2nd a neighbor reported seeing Russell
00:22:18
walking on the golf course in the community Russell had recently given up golf and had taken to walking just to
00:22:26
get some exercise we don't know what time this was though this is we don't have a time for this sighting this was
00:22:33
the last time anyone reported any sightings of Shirley and Russell Derman at some point during the day on Friday
00:22:40
Shirley durman's sent an email and we have no reason to believe that it was someone else
00:22:46
sending it we know from what was found in the house that Shirley worked on the crossword puzzle in the USA Today
00:22:53
weekend edition right which is delivered on Fridays it was found on the kitchen table her children told sheriff sills
00:23:02
that she usually worked on the puzzle in the mornings and we know that at 4:30 p.m. on Friday the durman's mail was
00:23:09
delivered according to the mail carrier sure sheriff sills apparently has reason
00:23:14
to believe that the mail was taken inside by the durman's perhaps it was found inside the home or the mail
00:23:22
carrier saw them we don't we don't know for certain how he came to this conclusion
00:23:27
in any event sheriff sills is certain that the durman's were alive and well at 4:30 p.m. on Friday May 2nd
00:23:37
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that's fabfitfun dot-com all right we're back cheers mate cheers to you captain so based on these
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sightings and what we know about the crime scene we can narrow down the time frame of when something happened to the
00:28:42
Dermot's so between a 4:30 p.m. Friday and 4:00 p.m. on Saturday this is when they failed to show up at the Kentucky
00:28:51
Derby party Plus Russell durman's body had been found clothed in boxer shorts a t-shirt and a robe with slippers nearby
00:28:59
so he likely was either preparing for bed or had recently got up from bed the bed was found unmade and an otherwise
00:29:08
immaculate home the durmand children told sheriff sills that if Russell didn't have a reason to get dressed
00:29:15
first thing in the morning you know like an appointment or an errand he was known
00:29:20
to hang around the house in his robe until late morning I like the cut of his jib in any event whatever happened
00:29:27
Russell somehow being killed and surely being taken happened between Friday during the day and Saturday early
00:29:35
afternoon no one reported anything strange nobody reported any strange cars at the house or boats parked at the
00:29:43
durman's dock so who could have taken this elderly frail woman and to what end with more and more time passing with no
00:29:52
answers as to shirley's whereabouts sheriff sills braced himself for a ransom note or call but it never came
00:30:01
then on Friday May 16th at 2:24 p.m. two men were out fishing on Lake Oconee near
00:30:10
the Wallace dam their boat neared a section of standing timber where under water trees were visible no the men
00:30:17
spotted something in the water as they got closer and approached the object they were shocked to see that it
00:30:23
was a human body floating facedown they called 911 reported a body floating in the water against a tree
00:30:31
lieutenant Luke responded to the scene via patrol boat he located the body and called sheriff sills around 3 p.m. they
00:30:42
pulled a bloated waterlogged female body from the water sill said later that the
00:30:48
body was swollen to twice it's normal size and was decomposing the body was fully dressed wearing army green capri
00:30:56
pants brown and tan floral short-sleeved shirt and lace size eight white shoes she was fully dressed yeah
00:31:05
sheriff sills was pretty sure that they had just found 87 year-old Shirley Thurman she had been missing for at
00:31:13
least 10 days by this point although the cause of death was not immediately evident - sills it was clear that
00:31:20
Shirley had not put herself into the lake the body had floated to the top which is a natural reaction to the gases
00:31:28
that build up inside a decomposing corpse right that is submerged we have any wounds on her well the reason the
00:31:38
the obvious thing that he notes right away of why she didn't put herself in the lake is you know the body floated up
00:31:46
to the top despite to read 30 pound concrete blocks tied to both of her ankles with a paracord no the cement
00:31:55
blocks were inside a bluish gray mesh bag someone had put the blocks in the bag tied the bag - Shirley's ankles and
00:32:03
thrown her into the lake this is about five and a half miles from the Derman home this area was accessible only by
00:32:11
boat Shirley's killer or killers used a boat to discard her body and forty six foot
00:32:18
deep water this is one of the deepest areas of the lake she was positively identified as Shirley
00:32:24
Derman by dental records the autopsy found that Shirley skull was fractured she was struck at least twice on the
00:32:32
right side of her head - v-shaped lacerations were found on her skull but the skull fractures were round
00:32:41
in shape leading sheriff sills to guess that the weapon used was a hammer although he has
00:32:46
reiterated that we do not know for sure what the weapon was the cause of death was blunt impact injury of the head
00:32:54
there was no sign of sexual assault the 550 or 5 5 0 para cord was wrapped around her ankles in the lack of
00:33:04
bruising indicated that the binding of Shirley's ankles occurred after death now the save time because we do have a
00:33:13
lot to get to right trust me when I when I say this I've looked into this and this was an extremely thorough and
00:33:21
exhaustive investigation the agencies involved led by sheriff sills have looked into everything and every inch in
00:33:29
angle was looked at even extending his investigation into other jurisdictions and other states so I want to give you
00:33:37
just a small part of SILS investigation but not the whole thing because it'd be just be too much
00:33:43
SILS obtained tens of thousands of pages of the durman's phone records and those
00:33:49
of their children and others associated with them no one detected any unusual calls or interactions with anyone anyone
00:33:58
the durman's had contact with was looked into sills canvassed the neighborhood and talked to over 200 residents about
00:34:07
225 people were asked 30 questions including where they were on the dates in question right and whether they had
00:34:15
any surveillance footage that could help the investigation the interviewers discovered that sure enough one woman
00:34:22
said she had seen a man in the durman's yard on that Saturday this woman reported seeing a man from her vantage
00:34:30
point in a house that wasn't very close by she was not able to determine this man's race age or ethnicity uh-huh but
00:34:41
she says he was in the durman's yard on Saturday sheriff sills met with her and reconstructed the
00:34:47
and his point she had and agreed that it was unlikely she could identify the man
00:34:53
it could even have been Russell himself as far as we know sheriff sills also interviewed Shirley's bridge club
00:35:02
members the pastor of their church and members of the congregation all of their friends a handyman day laborers and
00:35:09
gardeners in the area some of whom were subjected to polygraphs and passed he ran background checks on the
00:35:17
residents of Great Waters looking for criminal histories I mean this is so strange I mean we have one person dead
00:35:25
in the house decapitated you then take the other person that doesn't seem to make any sense unless it was to get them
00:35:36
into an area so you could do weird sexual things the motive would be sexual I think once you remove the female or
00:35:45
ransom but no ransom note comes mm-hmm and then you find her in a area that would have to you'd have to get to by
00:35:54
boat but we don't know if the perpetrator got to their house by a boat he's very very confusing
00:36:04
well you're pointing out something that's very spot on right here because the the alarming thing about this case
00:36:10
and the difficult thing about this investigation it really seems like you have to determine why the movements of
00:36:18
the perpetrators were what they were and it's very difficult to determine that one because the lack of motive but to
00:36:27
here's the thing when researching this I found out that one when somebody's murdered and then decapitated
00:36:34
decapitation is pretty it's a pretty low percentage of the time that that even occurs yeah then on top of that when the
00:36:41
head is removed from the crime scene from the murder scene that percentage is even much less I couldn't find any
00:36:49
statistics on a situation like this at all where there is decapitation head removed
00:36:55
and a second victim who's removed from the murder scene yeah so in talking about the people
00:37:01
the sheriff's ills looked at I mean that's a pretty thorough list right there well he even looked into the
00:37:08
mailman yeah then you have this idea too is is it two perpetrators because there's two victims but it doesn't have
00:37:16
to be like normally you'd go okay well you have a man and his wife and and maybe there would be it makes it a lot
00:37:24
easier if there's two perpetrators oh because they're elderly couple not necessarily so it's like now are we
00:37:32
looking at one perpetrator her or too well all three of the Derman adult kids who lived in other states were
00:37:40
interviewed multiple times polygraphed and past now remember when we just were discussing who the durman's were we
00:37:47
mentioned that they had four children right but one of their children had passed away before this ever happened
00:37:54
okay so sills looked extensively into the durman's financial records sills noted that the durman's were somewhat
00:38:02
frugal and were careful with their money they weren't they were not overly wealthy they were not in any way
00:38:08
ostentatious or glitzy they didn't even have ATM cards well wouldn't they be children
00:38:14
of the depression so they'd be more frugal yeah and I mean I know we went through his career in his professional
00:38:23
life but the vibe I get here is yeah they did well and they were successful but it seems to me like they may have
00:38:30
got to where they were late in life by being frugal for most of their lives more so than just making a bunch of
00:38:38
money right there was absolutely nothing unusual about any of their financial affairs sheriff sills even insisted on
00:38:46
being present when the Derman children opened their parents safety deposit box just in case there was something
00:38:53
important inside and he says there was not right one of the first things sheriffs Hills considered was the
00:39:00
security around great waters around that development where the durman's lived this was an incredibly low crime area of
00:39:08
course there were security cameras at the guard shack that monitored the entrance to the subdivision sills sent
00:39:15
deputy to obtain the camera footage from the days surrounding the Derman murders
00:39:20
but there was no footage doesn't it seem like it's just this way every time that's on yeah the system had been fried
00:39:29
a fruit a few weeks earlier by a bolt of lightning from a storm on April 28th so
00:39:36
there are no recordings of the comings and goings and activities at great waters after that date you know about
00:39:43
how many people in this area knew this probably quite a bit right I cannot say I would speculate the in most situations
00:39:53
this isn't something that they would broadcast to the residents you would think they would right that's a safety
00:40:01
precaution hey our security cameras I have been compromised two two lightning I can't say for certain if it was
00:40:09
general knowledge of the residents because I couldn't find that information but what I can say is sheriff sills who
00:40:16
I consider to be incredibly knowledgeable and thorough he obviously was unaware of it because he sent deputy
00:40:24
to collect footage that was not there sheriff sills said that the only time his office had any interaction with the
00:40:33
durman's was back in 2012 this is when the durman's had reported a credit card fraud incident they had never reported
00:40:42
anything else fishy ever or even called the police otherwise the guard shack at the
00:40:49
entrance to Great Waters this was a typical little booth man by a security guard who checked authorizations of
00:40:57
those entering the development in 2014 there was no armed that came down to stop access for cars trying to get in
00:41:05
the shack was man 24 hours a day and visitors had to be approved by a telephone call to the residents
00:41:12
residents themselves had stickers showing that they lived there but others such as great waters maintenance men
00:41:19
landscape workers repairman and so on also could get temporary passes and were most likely just wave through if they
00:41:28
displayed them and people who told the guards that they were there to play golf or eat at the
00:41:35
clubhouse were also admitted right sheriff SIL said that in theory records of these people were kept but it doesn't
00:41:42
sound like it would be that hard for an outsider to enter the area security was pretty lacs over all the durman's had a
00:41:51
security system at their home but their son Brad indicated they had been disconnected over Easter a few weeks
00:41:58
before the murders we haven't been able to gather any additional information about whether the home security system
00:42:05
was out of order at the time of the murders or not but it seems to be this way sheriff sills has remarked that it
00:42:12
was functional but it was not turned on but in another interview with WSB TV 2 he indicated that the home security
00:42:22
system had been disconnected twice in the few weeks before the murders the Derman children said that normally their
00:42:29
parents would lock their doors and set the alarm at night but clearly whether it was working or not the alarm was not
00:42:36
in use at the moment the durman's home was accessed by someone with sinister intentions
00:42:43
also the durman's home number and address were publicly available so clearly they weren't too concerned about
00:42:51
security sheriff sills looked into all the boat rentals around the time of the murders
00:42:57
on the assumption that the killers could have arrived by boat by passing altogether the guard shack and the risk
00:43:03
associated with driving into and out of the community yeah if he found anything he isn't saying there there were no boat
00:43:13
thefts reported around that time if you know if even leading up to that days or weeks or months in advance and no one
00:43:23
reported that their boat appeared to have been used by someone else during this time as well it is still possible
00:43:29
that somebody could they used somebody's boat and returned it without them knowing mm-hmm sills looked into all
00:43:36
similar murders particularly decapitations around the country murders with decapitations are rare
00:43:43
with only three to four occurring yearly in cases where the head is taken are even more rare one case in New York
00:43:51
seemed very similar this took place in November of 2015 when 83 year old Lois Colley was beaten to death in her home
00:44:00
in an exclusive community there was no forced entry and nothing was taken and there seemed to be no motive the
00:44:08
clincher was that Miss Holly mrs. Colley's family owned fast-food restaurants just like the durman's did
00:44:15
at one time yet law enforcement was not able to establish a connection with the durman's and in fact the suspect was
00:44:23
arrested in 2017 in the Kaali case but seems to have no links whatsoever to Shirley and Russell sheriff sills
00:44:32
consulted forensic experts as far away as China and utilized manpower from other law enforcement agencies as far
00:44:39
away as London he also sat down with six psychics over the years who claimed to have known nothing
00:44:46
sheriff sills interviewed eight to ten former employees of Russell German and administered polygraphs to the lawn guy
00:44:53
and the handyman who did some work around the Derman house there was no other domestic help at the time and it
00:45:00
seems like these polygraphs led nowhere well he's definitely doing his due diligence and anybody that's willing to
00:45:06
talk and anybody that's willing to give a polygraph they're at least going through with that well and that's why I
00:45:13
point out that this investigation seems to be incredibly thorough one this is a guy who very I mean he clearly has the
00:45:22
experience and the knowledge to take on this type of investigation but he's also
00:45:29
humble enough that he does get other people involved and that's one thing that a lot of experts will say is once a
00:45:36
case goes cold you know after let's say 12 months of getting no real leads that are that are taking you anywhere and in
00:45:45
the investigation seems to just be going nowhere that's when you get other agencies involved you get new fresh eyes
00:45:51
on the crime on the crime scene on the evidence that you currently have and try to get some type of lead based
00:45:59
off of other experts experiences so sheriff sills even borrowed two experienced detectives from the
00:46:08
Jacksonville Florida cold-case squad the detectives reviewed the case files with
00:46:14
sills to help him try to get to the bottom of this case sheriff sills also periodically brought
00:46:20
in experts from the DA's office and neighboring counties as well as the FBI to help aid in the investigation where
00:46:29
it stands today captain we still don't know what happened to the durman's who did this and why it also seems to like
00:46:37
there would be access points to this water that might not be able to there might not be able to patrol or no so it
00:46:50
could be a possibility ability to that the perpetrator would park somewhere else access the water further away and
00:46:59
make it into the the subdivision yeah and that brings up another good question too is if you have trouble establishing
00:47:07
a motive here were the durman's themselves actually targeted or was this person or persons just determined to
00:47:18
enter the area and then choose a target at some point right but again why just for to to cause harm to somebody because
00:47:31
again we don't there's no sign of burglary you think that would be the motive and there's no sign of sexual
00:47:39
assault so is it just a thrill kill well I think before we move on to some theories let's let's go through a quick
00:47:49
list of what we do in fact know that the facts of the case as it stands today because there is some new information
00:47:56
that came out along the way one thing that I really enjoy about sheriff sills is he's kind of an open book guy he
00:48:05
understands that there is certain things that as investigators they should hold but he's also of the type that he will
00:48:13
put a lot of things out into the public and as a case goes on he will add information to help break get a break in
00:48:23
the case right as we pointed out before this incident this guy has solved every murder that happened during the course
00:48:31
of his tenure as the sheriff so what we do know is this Russell and Shirley Derman were murdered and likely this
00:48:40
happened sometime between late afternoon on Friday May 2nd and 4:00 p.m. on Saturday May 3rd no one broke in there
00:48:48
was no obvious signs of struggle the couple was not restrained and the couple likely was not killed in the home
00:48:56
that's a weird part okay and I know that's tough for us to wrap our heads around here but that is something that
00:49:05
sheriff sills has said on you know news coverage and in interviews regarding this case he says that he believes that
00:49:14
they were likely not killed at home meaning that there's little there's no evidence to suggest that they were
00:49:21
killed in the home itself which is a an added angle difficult angle for this case especially when you factor in that
00:49:32
we don't really have any eyewitnesses but the one who states they saw a man in the durman's yard who could not be
00:49:40
identified because of how far away this witness was mm-hmm so Russell was decapitated with a very sharp tool
00:49:47
probably a knife this occurred after death and it we do know that the decapitation did happen in the garage
00:49:54
there is evidence to back that up his head has never been found Russell was wearing what appeared to be
00:50:02
the clothes that he slept in or was preparing to sleep in sheriff sills later revealed this is one of those
00:50:10
interesting things right here he later revealed after keeping this information under wraps for some time that a small
00:50:17
amount of GSR was found on the back of Russell's shirt near his caller Russell had this GSR on the
00:50:27
back of his shirt and he was not known to be a sports shooter so this points out that he may have been shot in the
00:50:34
head before he was decapitated Russell had a deep laceration on his hand and hair was entangled in his hand shirley
00:50:45
was killed by blows to the head with a hammer or another tool which crushed her skull shirley was likely taken away by
00:50:53
boat tied to the bag containing the concrete blocks and dumped in the lake after she was already dead it's possible
00:51:01
that she was driven away in a car to the other side of the lake and then placed in a boat but either way a boat had to
00:51:08
be involved because of where the body was found and located and I really circle this part in the investigation
00:51:16
and who the killer's may be walled on just to stop you right there so you're saying a boat has to be involved based
00:51:24
on where her body was found but the but but a boat would have to be involved for
00:51:30
the dumping of the body not necessarily the taking of the woman right right and that but that's what I'm pointing out
00:51:37
and circling here is because of the location of where the body was found yeah and because it was weighted down
00:51:43
you know he brought in sheriff sills brought in the appropriate people to determine that the body didn't it it
00:51:51
came out of the water shortly after it floated to the top yeah and they also determined that it couldn't have moved
00:51:58
more than a hundred yards from where the location was that she was eventually found he actually thinks that it
00:52:05
probably moved even less than that because as they pointed out in the 911 call the body was lying up it was like
00:52:11
snagged on one of those trees so this is one of the deepest parts of the lake and
00:52:17
this is a very big lake so sheriff sills is really reminding us here that a boat
00:52:24
in some form was involved in this case at some point it has to be so the killers or the killer came prepared as
00:52:34
they likely brought the tools that were used on remember these items were not found in
00:52:40
the house and there was no obvious things that were noticed to have been missing from the house Shirley was found
00:52:48
in deep water as we pointed out earlier about five and a half miles from their home nothing obvious was taken from the
00:52:55
house there were valuables left in plain sight this really really makes it confusing to the motive that was
00:53:04
involved here now if the eyewitness is to be believed which sheriff sills says he believes
00:53:12
this eyewitness a man was in the durman's yard and this took place on Saturday some forensic evidence was
00:53:21
found at the scene now whether it be DNA fibers tangible evidence or just something else we don't know what that
00:53:28
is although multiple new sources report that no foreign DNA was found sheriff sills has said that he has quote
00:53:36
forensic evidence collected at the house but he is keeping mum on what it would be yeah they could be anything yeah
00:53:45
there was no blood found on the grounds on the dock or in the home anywhere except the garage we do know that in
00:53:54
2012 the durman's were victims of American Express credit card fraud where one of their cards was hacked in two
00:54:01
thousand dollars in online expenditures racked up at Macy's and Amazon they reported this to the Putnam County
00:54:09
Sheriff's Office this is the only interaction that the durman's ever had with the sheriff's office Russell and
00:54:16
Shirley lived a normal quiet life and were well-liked social and friendly they were well off but frugal and cautious
00:54:24
with their spending they were contemplating downsizing and had sold their boat the family seemed to be close
00:54:32
and loving they seemed to have no enemies yeah and were described as religious sweet unassuming family
00:54:39
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