EATONTON, Ga. — Investigators in Putnam County and New York are collaborating to see whether two unsolved murder cases involving the elderly are related.
Russell and Shirley Dermond were found dead in May 2014. Russell Dermond, 88, was found beheaded in the garage at his home on Lake Oconee on May 6, 2014. Two fisherman found the body of Shirley Dermond, 87, near a dam in the lake May 16, 2014. She was found weighted down with cinder blocks.
Lois Colley, 83, was found dead in her home in North Salem, N.Y., on Nov. 9. She was the wife of millionaire McDonald's franchise owner Eugene Colley.
The double murder of the Dermonds is one of the most unusual and horrifying in Georgia. When Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills learned about the murder of Colley — a socialite who was found dead in the laundry room of her home in a wealthy area known for its horse farms and large estates — he felt like he'd heard the story before.
"Very wealthy people. A lady at her residence was found beaten to death at her home. Nothing was taken. No sign of forced entry," Sills said in an interview Thursday. He said investigators in New York working that case called the Putnam County Sheriff's Office this week.
The New York investigators were trying to learn all they could about the killing of the Dermonds. The couple had lived quietly in a gated community on Lake Oconee.
Earlier, officials in New York went to Ridgefield, Conn., where four residential burglaries and one car break-in had been reported. At the time, New York State Police investigator Joseph Becerra said there did not appear to be a connection to Colley's slaying but that it was a lead they had to pursue.
The ties between the Georgia and New York cases are circumstantial.
• Both cases have wealthy, elderly victims, found brutally murdered inside their homes
• Both cases have no apparent motive
• Both homes had no sign of forced entry
• Both victims lived in exclusive communities
• Both victims owned fast food franchises
• Both murders are unsolved.
There's one other potential connection: the Dermonds' son Mark Dermond. He was killed during a street level drug deal in Atlanta 15 years ago. Sills said in the 1980s Mark Dermond was arrested in Nassau County, N.Y. — some 50 miles from the November crime scene.
"I talked to that detective two days ago probably for 45 minutes or an hour comparing everything in their case, everything in our case," Sills said.
Sills says his gut says the two unsolved killings are unrelated. But if there's an arrest in New York, he said he will be anxious to learn everything he can about the suspect — and whether he was in Georgia in May 2014.
Contributing: Jane Lerner and Jonathan Bandler, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News. Follow Doug Richards on Twitter: @richardsdoug
