Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - HUBBY BEHEADED IN GARAGE, WIFE IN LAKE TIED TO CEMENT: Who Killed the Dermonds? Best of Crime Stories

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Russell and Shirley Dermond live in a beautiful lakefront property, Lake Oconee, Georgia. The couple is expected at a Kentucky Derby watch party with neighbors, but don’t show up. When the neighbors reach out by phone, the Dermonds don’t answer. Days later, arriving at the Dermond’s home, the neighbor is surprised to find the front door unlocked. The neighbor calls out their names to no reply.   The neighbor looks in the garage to see if the Dermond’s car is there. The neighbor discovers Russell Dermond laying on the garage floor, decapitated.  The neighbor calls 911, racing around the house looking for Shirley Dermond, but she is nowhere to be found.   Investigators begin a neighborhood search and beyond for Shirley Dermond, without success.  The search lasts for 10 days until two fishermen find her body in lake Oconee. Shirley Dermond has been dumped in the lake with cinder blocks tied to her legs. Her body is recovered about 5 miles from the Dermond home near the dam.  Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Sheriff Howard Sills - Putnam County Sheriff Dr. Kristen Mittelman- Chief Development Officer, Othram Inc., Othram.com, DNAsolves.com;; X @OthramTech  Joe Scott Morgan – Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, “Blood Beneath My Feet,” and Host: “Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;” X: @JoScottForensic Dr. John Delatorre –  Licensed Psychologist and Mediator (specializing in forensic psychology); Psychological Consultant to Project Absentis: a nonprofit organization that searches for missing persons; Twitter, IG, and TikTok – @drjohndelatorre Cody Alcorn – Reporter, 11Alive WXIA (Atlanta, GA); Facebook.com/CodyAlcornNews  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Neighbors in fear. A beloved couple found the hubby beheaded in the garage. Yes, you heard me. The husband found decapitated in the garage. The wife, nobody could find for the longest time. And then she was found by fishermen in the lake tied to a cement chunk. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

Russell and Shirley Dermond are happily married and living in a beautiful lakefront property, Lake Oconee, Georgia. The couple is expected at a Kentucky Derby watch party with neighbors, but don't show up. When the neighbors reach out by phone, the Dermonds don't pick up. Days later, however, arriving at the Dermonds' home, the neighbors are surprised to find the front door unlocked. Calling out their names, nobody replies. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now about the Dermons' disappearance. And I want to go first to a special guest joining us from Putnam County, the elected Sheriff, Sheriff Howard Seals. Sheriff Seals, thank you for being with us. Isn't it odd that the smallest detail can raise the red alarm, right?

The flag of alarm. When this neighbor realized that the door was not secure, that it was unlocked, right then the neighbor knew something was terribly wrong. Well, I suspect so, but a lot of people here in this community still don't lock their doors, Nancy. Yeah, you know what? I'm very familiar with Putnam County. I was a camp counselor there at a national forest, the 4-H Rock Eagle Camp, and it is beautiful, but it's also very densely forested with a lot of lakes. And this home was on the beautiful Lake Oconee.

Those are beautiful homes right there on the lake, right? Right. This was part of Reynolds and Lake Oconee, so a very exclusive neighborhood of very expensive homes. Joseph Scott Morgan is joining me. Professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet, Death Investigator, and host of a hit series, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan. Joseph Scott, you and I have been to the scene and have very, very extensively walked the area. Not only is the dense forest an issue, but the fact that this is such a high-end property, a gated community, where crime is very, very low. That's the first oddity in this case. You know, the sheriff had mentioned this being Reynolds, Reynolds Plantation. For those of us from anywhere around the South approximating this area, we're very familiar with this location.

You're talking about very high-end living. And you have an expectation of safety in these particular parts where, you know, something this horrible, and this is at the top of the scale, Nancy, as far as cases go that we've been covering lo these many years, you don't expect something this horrific to have occurred in this rather, I don't know how to say it other than just kind of safe and bucolic location here on this beautiful Lake Oconee. And you begin to think about points of access. How in the world would somebody be brave enough to go into this location? And how did they access this home in this gated community? And it smacks of a level of familiarity with the area.

To me, it always has, at least. I mean, yeah, hold on right there, Joe Scott. Everything you're saying is absolutely correct, but I want to hone in on it before I miss a point. You know, I feel like an English teacher, you know how they dissect the sentences on the blackboard? Yes, and don't ask me what a gerund is, because I still haven't figured that out.

But you just gave me so much information and everybody on the panel. Do I have to remind you we're not having high tea at Buckingham Palace? Jump in if you have a thought, because although the sheriff has been working this case, I'm sure he's open to any new ideas. Joe Scott, you mentioned the level of familiarity, as you said. Okay. If somebody said to me, okay, I want you to fly over to Oregon and I want you to find Oregon forestry neighborhood and go to this certain house. I would not have any idea what they were talking about. Right.

Where in Oregon, uh, and you know how wooded Oregon is. So where is this neighborhood? It's gated. How am I going to get in unless I climb over a fence? Do I have access to get in? And then you go back through all these windy roads. How are you going to find the place? How are you going to find the victims? How are you going to dispose of the wife with nobody seeing or hearing a thing? And I grew up on a red dirt road, Joe Scott, as you know. So when you refer to quote high end living, what exactly do you mean by that? Let me just say this. We've got a lake that spans five counties and the opportunity to get there by water is infinitesimal. Okay. Likewise, when you talk about where do you go, if you're looking for Russell Derman,

you can go on the website of the Putnam County Tax Assessor's website and find out exactly where it went clicked. But that would, and you're right, you're totally right about all of what you just said, Sheriff, but that takes me to someone with a boat. But that would, and you're right. You're totally right about all of what you just said, Sheriff. But that takes me to someone with a boat. Okay, that means money. Somebody with a boat

on Lake Oconee, which narrows my suspect pool. Somebody that would take a boat to their home, dock it, commit the murders, and then take the wife's body tied to a cement rock chunk out into

the water. Who would approach this by boat? And as far as the tax assessment, you're right again, Sheriff Seals, but that tells me a lot about the perp. Somebody that's familiar with the computer, somebody would think, hey, if I go to the tax assessor's website, I can find this guy that's very targeted. So, Joe Scott, when you refer to high-end living, what's that? Well, you think you have access to all of these amenities around there, not just the lake, but very high-end golfing, if anyone's ever heard of Reynolds Plantation. This is not something just somebody off the street can walk in and afford to do. And that tells you a lot about the Dermans, I think, relative to the life that they had chosen to live in this supposedly secure location where they could live out their golden years in this particular spot.

And back to the lake, just one more second here, going to familiarity. I think that it's key because unless it was perhaps a neighbor that had access to a boat that could do this sort of thing, we have to think about, well, how familiar are they with local boat ramps where you can launch a boat to get into this location. And you begin to think about nighttime and being able to kind of navigate your way through this environment. And the placement of the remains is certainly key here as well. So bottom line, let me understand this. Dave Mac joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, the cheapest house you can get. And when you hear Joe Scott Morgan referring to high end living, his words, not mine. I'm trying to get my head wrapped around that because we thought we were living high end when we finally got a washer and a dryer. Yeah.

Washer and dryer. That was the big time for us. And we would all just go look at it. We were not allowed to touch it, of course, until we learned how to use it. But that said, did you know, Dave Mack, that the cheapest place, the cheapest house you can get at this Reynolds Plantation on this lake is in the over $500,000, approaching $600,000. That's the cheapest. It's an amazing, beautiful place. Yeah. And you know, Dave Mack, as you and I have discussed many, many times off camera, I don't care if the victims are rich, poor, middle class, if they got a PhD or they dropped out in third grade, don't care. My point is the level of crime in this gated community with multimillion dollar homes on the lakefront is zero. I mean, nobody is getting murdered, much less beheaded in this area. That's where I'm headed, Dave Mack.

Nancy, when you really look at this, okay, and no, nobody's getting beheaded. Nobody's getting kidnapped. Nobody's getting murdered in this beautiful place. But Nancy, this wasn't even a robbery, okay? The level of crime here is very, very low. But again, remember here, we have two people dead in the most heinous way you can imagine. And yet there wasn't it wasn't like there was a robbery going on and they surprised the burglars and it blew up. There was no robbery. There was nothing taken. And by the way, doesn't even look like there's any evidence inside the house that they were killed inside the house. Who would behead the dad and tie this grandma to a cement chunk and throw her to the bottom of the lake?

Who? This is not your ordinary bar brawl, Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics. So we're looking at an entirely different suspect pool. Yeah, you certainly are. You're looking at somebody that has a certain level of planning. You know, this is not obviously some kind of spontaneous event where one person says something, it makes somebody angry and they just fly off the handle and you've got an assault that leads to a homicide. It's nothing like that. This takes preparation. It takes time. And again, I come back to this benchmark throughout this entire case.

It involves familiarity with the location, you know, access and opportunity. How could you know this? How could you be aware of timelines? How could you be aware of where to deposit a body and to do it in a stealth, stealthy manner? Guys, I want to go back to the same. What can we learn? Listen. The same neighbor decides to look in the garage to see if the Dermot's car is there. It's there in the garage. The neighbor discovers Russell D, psychologist and mediator who specializes in forensic psychology. And you can find him at resolutionfcs.com.

Dr. Delatore, thank you for being with us. If there's no sex attack and there's no robbery, who would go to the effort of not just killing this beloved couple, not just killing them, but decapitating the father and tying the mom to a cement chunk and throwing her in the water. Why? I think this is someone who feels offended. They somehow this the Dermans offended this individual. The Germans may not even know what they did or they might not even know who this perpetrator actually was. But this person felt offended by what was going on. And I think he was offended. I say he because more than likely he is. The offender is a he. but i think he was offended by mr

dermon i think a lot of it is probably targeted because of whatever it was that that he was doing i think this is i think he wanted mr dermon to watch what the offender was going to do to mrs dermon i i think that there's a lot more sort of internal struggle, strife. There's a lot of anger that is associated with this that I'm not even sure this family even knew existed or even knew that this person existed before it all happened. Okay, to Sheriff Howard Seals joining us, the elected sheriff there in Putnam County. Sheriff Seals, we hear Dr. Del Tori, and I'm not saying that he's wrong, but let's analyze it. Let's follow it through to its logical conclusion.

Someone angry with Mr. Dermond? Angry about what? Angry about what he was doing. What was he doing? Well, I don't know that, but I agree with his assessment of that because the assault on Mrs. Dermond was quite violent. She was struck multiple times through the skull with something like a hammer. I don't know if it was a hammer, but something like that and that's particularly violent. And there's some evidence that we have that I don't want

to go into great detail that Mr. Derman was present when that occurred. We do not believe she was killed at the house. And we believe he was shot only because there was some gunshot residue on his shirt. So it's very much a violent crime, very much pointed toward them. We never thought otherwise. And it's but through you cannot imagine what we've done from the standpoint of technology, bank records. I mean, you just can't imagine. But we we just simply have not been able to find that individual that that that would have had that type of animosity so far. Russell Derman's body is found lying between the two cars in the garage. He's wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of boxers, and he's found lying on top of a robe while his slippers are tossed to the side. Russell Derman's bare feet are stained with blood,

and there's a faint red trail smeared from the door all the way to his body. Towels have been placed around him, presumably to prevent blood from leaking under the garage door. His hands are bruised and bloody, with a severe gash on the left index finger. Strands of Shirley Derman's hair are tangled within Russell Derman's fingers, suggesting a struggle between the Dermans and their attacker. Boy, do I need a professor of forensics right now. Joe Scott Morgan, do you hear all that? That's a lot of forensic evidence to wade through. It certainly is. And you begin to think about the dynamics of the attack, as Sheriff had mentioned earlier on Mrs. Dermond, which is quite intriguing from a forensic standpoint.

When you talk about what type of weapon this individual showed up with or perhaps access from the home in order to commit such an attack like this, it's very up close, personal, very bloody affair, you would think. And then you have this contact trace evidence that goes over to Mr. Derman. It gives you an idea of the intimacy, the proximity of these two individuals as the attack is going on. And, you know, for me, I'm thinking, what would be the end game here relative to one of these individuals who have been married for years and years and years, Nancy, for the perp to have terrorized them in front of one another? And so that, again, goes to the dynamic of what the individual that they're looking for, the perp, has against these individuals because the level of violence

we're talking about. What do you make of the fact that Russell had his wife's hair intertwined in his fingers? I'd be interested to know how was it intertwined? Is this something that had occurred as a result of hair being pulled from her head by him? You have to consider that. And then you also have to think about, well, if there's like a copious amount of blood, sometimes, you know, we slough hair. And many times, if you have this tackiness on the surface of the hand, and you're in proximity to loose hair, that can transfer onto the hand. So, I'd have to know about the placement of the hair. I'd like to know what his fingernails look like, if they, and I'm sure that they probably did, the state medical examiner's office did nail trimmings and

scrapings on both of these. Well, probably not Mrs. Derman. That wouldn't have offered much information, but certainly Mr. Derman, because he was found in a dry environment. I'm very curious because this reminds me of the Scott Peterson case where he murdered Lacey and his unborn child, Connor, looking at these two and their youth so in love. Remember, Joe Scott, that Lacey's hair wasn't just sitting on Scott Peterson's toolbox. It wasn't just sitting on a pair of long-nosed pliers. It was intertwined in the pliers. Now, how did that happen? Same thing here. We've got to find out how was her hair on his hand? Was it in between his fingers? Was it stuck on his wedding

band? Was it stuck in blood that had dried? Did it come from her head? In other words, was the root still attached, the nucleus still attached to the hair? Was it a transfer from dragging his body across the floor and he got a hair on his hands? We don't know the answer to that. And that's very important. Would you agree? Yes, I would. And the dynamic that you're thinking about relative to bodies after, when you have a

multiple homicide, for instance, what's the perpetrator going to do with the bodies? And let's just say, for instance, you have a circumstance where you have two bodies that are essentially contacting one another, at least for a period of time. Any number of things can transfer from one body to the other. And I think probably the sheriff is certainly considering this in this ongoing investigation. He has to think about, you know, those points of contact along the way, both inside the house, in the garage, and this mysterious vessel that we might be talking about as well as here, because, you know, literally with that boat, you've got a

floating crime scene as well. You really do. Sheriff Howard Stills with us, the elected sheriff in Putnam County. What about the hair? I've heard the description that it was intertwined in his fingers. Is that correct? We believe, and I believe what happened is Mr. Derman reached out to block the blow against his wife's head when they hit her. And that caused the laceration.

And also, it was a compound fracture in the finger. And that's where the hair was. So I think that he was actually attempting to defend the blow against his wife. And that's how it got in there. It's pretty clear that's what it is to me. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me now is an esteemed scientist. It is Dr. Kristen Middleman, the chief development officer at Authram Labs.

You can find her at DNA solves dot com, a renowned scientist. And when I say she is a chief development officer, she is a scientist, an expert in cutting edge DNA technology. Dr. Middleman, thank you for being with us. This has got to be a scientist like you, a dream, a cornucopia of DNA evidence. Actually, it's a nightmare of DNA evidence because there is so much blood, there is so much gruesomeness that belongs to the victims in this crime scene that it over have to figure out multiple different types of evidence to test to try to figure out who might have committed this crime. And if it was only one person that committed this crime or multiple. Investigators began a neighborhood search and beyond for Shirley Derman without success. The decapitated body of her husband, Russell Dermond, was placed in the garage with towels placed around the body.

Early on, investigators believe Russell was killed elsewhere and his body brought to the garage because the towels appeared to be placed around his body to prevent blood from seeping out under the garage door. But there doesn't appear to be as much blood in the towels as would be expected had he been decapitated while still alive where his body is found. Which to you, Sheriff Howard Seals, elected sheriff of Putnam County, leads me to the question, if not murdered there, where were they killed? And what was the purpose of bringing them back to their own home? Well, that's the million dollar question that if I probably knew the answer, there'd be somebody in the back back here today. But we don't believe, obviously, that she was

killed there. And why on earth they would have brought his body back, I do not know. He was certainly deceased at the time of the decapitation. So this was more of a preventive for decop flu and things like that leaking out from under the garage door, I think, than actual blood. Joe Scott, Morgan, joining us. Explain how a medical examiner can determine if Russell was decapitated prior to his death or if that was the cause of the cause of death or decapitated post-mortem. Yeah, with a post-mortem decapitation or any severance of any appendage to the body, if it's in the post-mortem state, you're not going to have what we refer to as these little focal, which means very specific areas of hemorrhage into the soft tissue.

And what that means is that as the body is being traumatized in life, the blood will actually leach out into the surrounding tissue where the trauma has occurred. When we're doing an examination of a body and we see, for instance, something as horrific as this, we're going to look for hemorrhage. If you have, say, what remains of the neck, you begin to kind of circumferentially around the area where this has taken place, you're going to look for hemorrhage in there. If you're absent that hemorrhage, you can deduce at that point in time that you're looking at a post-mortem or after-death injury. And the sheriff seems very convinced. He stated, as a matter of fact, that Russell was

decapitated after he was killed. The theory is that there were at least two perpetrators. Why? Listen. Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sill says the evidence points to at least two people being involved in the murders of Russell and Shirley Derman. The sheriff says he believes the couple was murdered in a place as yet unknown to investigators, and the double homicide appears to have been personal, not something that happened during the commission of another crime, such as a burglary, as nothing appears to have been stolen. Sheriff, why are you convinced there were at least two perpetrators that murdered these two? Well, Mrs. Dermott's body, I mean, we're talking about two bodies here that were moved. She was disposed of by boat five miles down the lake, and I just

find it almost impossible that one person could have picked up bodies and things like that and moved them around from one location to another, much less six miles down the lake, then tied the bag with the box in it and all that. I just found that highly unlikely. It's at least two. It wouldn't surprise me, quite candidly, if there were more. Dr. Kristen Middleman joining us, Chief Development Officer at Orthoram Labs, who specialize in degraded or even old DNA, really working miracles. Dr. Middleman, thank you for being with us. If you were advising a crew of forensics experts on how and where they should look for DNA at this scene, what would you tell them? I would definitely look at everything that was just like Joe said earlier, underneath fingernails, things that had touched the body that may not have been overcome by all

the blood and all of the other fluids that were at the crime scene. Because the victim was decapitated that was found in the garage, you have a lot of DNA that belongs to the victim that may overpower any touch DNA or DNA that was found on the towel or the robe or anything that was around that victim to stop the bleeding. And so those are things I would say try to find DNA that would be a higher mixture of the perpetrator than it would be the victim, just like skin cells under fingernails or something the perpetrator may have touched and not the victim or the victim's fluids. Now, the other thing is you said earlier that maybe her fingernails wouldn't be useful because they were at the bottom of the lake. I still think that DNA could

be pulled from something like that. We have identified people that have been chopped to bits and in suitcases at the bottom of a lake for decades, bottom of sewage tanks. So we have figured out ways to overcome water and degradation that comes, contamination that comes with being in water for a very long time. So I would still look at that evidence as well. Maybe because her body was discarded before it was manipulated as much as his by the decapitation, maybe there would be more DNA in her body that could be found that would be more perpetrator. That would be my suggestion. There is no evidence to suggest either of the Dermons were killed inside their house. There is also no evidence of the exact time and date of

their death. Sheriff Sills said Shirley Derman was working on a crossword puzzle out of USA Today that's left on the kitchen table. The Derman's bed was unmade and Russell Derman was working on a crossword puzzle out of USA Today that's left on the kitchen table. The Derman's bed was unmade and Russell Derman was found laying on top of his bathrobe wearing his boxers and a T-shirt. When Shirley Derman's body is found in Lake Oconee, she is completely dressed. To Sheriff Howard Seals joining us from Putnam County. Sheriff, that tells you about what time of the day do you think these two were murdered? Well, again, we don't really know because of talking to the Dermott's children, we learned that when Mr. Dermott would get up in the morning,

if he didn't have anything to do, that he would lounge around for several hours sometimes with his robe and bedclothes on. However, her custom was when she got up, she immediately became dressed. We do know that a man was seen, or somebody was seen in their yard on the Saturday before the Kentucky Derby. So we actually think because of all of that together that this probably

happened initially sometime Saturday during the daytime. Well, I'm curious, just looking at people's behavior, he still had on his boxers and a t-shirt. She was doing the crossword puzzle. Joining me is Dr. John Delatore, a renowned psychologist and mediator who specializes in forensic psychology. Dr. Delatore, number one, I need to know the date of the USA Today crossword puzzle. And it is just striking me that this was in the morning, which makes this even more of an aberration, an oddity. Yeah, because they're unprepared, right? There's nothing to suggest that anything is going on in their daily lives that made them afraid of whatever it is that's going on. Even if there was an individual in their yard, it certainly doesn't

appear as though that individual shouldn't be there, Right. So there's a lot that's sort of just the routine, right, the mundane, the regular things that these two individuals kind of go. But there is something in which they were unprepared and they just kind of it was just unexpected. And instead of using force, the individual probably used some kind of coercive technique, whether it was a gun or a weapon or something like that. But there was more coercion, more verbal threats, more than there was physical threats. Just got Morgan joining us. Professor of Forensics, is not all about fingerprints and fibers. Let's take a look at it, Joe Scott. Number one, the date of the USA Today paper. Was it her custom to do the crossword in the mornings? Were coffee cups sitting out on the kitchen table?

Was there a pot of coffee still in the coffee maker? Was there anything in the crock pot? Were there dishes out from lunch? Or did it look more like dinner? We know that they didn't show up for the Kentucky Derby party. So that gives us a clue as to the end. They were dead by that time. What else would you look for, Joe Scott? Well, Sheriff Seals has done the right thing by going to speak with the family. It's something we do in investigations to just try to get a take a temperature of what their daily routine looks like. And you have to try to understand that. And are there any moments in time that deviate from those normal behaviors moving

forward? I think that also one of the things, and if we believe that there may have been more than one individual involved in this, I think that it would be very important to try to examine any kind of available digital evidence that might be available from back during that time period as far as phone records, anything that came off of any of the towers back then. I don't know if that's necessarily possible, but it's certainly something that's intriguing. If you've got one person in the yard, perhaps, are they communicating with someone else that could facilitate bringing a boat around? Because that's the rub, isn't it? You know, how do you get a boat into a location where you're running the risk in broad daylight of people being

seen at their dock or their mooring location there? How does this work? So there has to be communication involved in this. I think that's certainly something to look at. And of course, you know, the age-old question, Dr. John Delatore, you really think two or more people could keep this quiet? No way. They had to tell a girlfriend, a wife, a co-conspirator. There was a reason for this murder. Somebody has to know why. And that leads you to who?

Again, it leads me to someone that felt offended by whatever Russell Derman was doing, whatever he whatever it was that he was involved in. Now, this could have been an ex-employee. This could have been this could have been anybody. When you say involved in, wait a minute, that makes it sounds like it's a victim's fault. How do I know it wasn't somebody that broke in and he wouldn't give up the PIN number to his checking account or his savings account? I mean, did that cause someone to go into a fury? But would they go through the effort of driving up in a boat and decapitating him over a PIN number? No, no, absolutely not. This is why I'm saying that this is about something that was going on within the individual that was specifically

targeting Russell Dermott or else none of this other stuff would need to have happened. I mean, these two individuals are killed in very disparate ways and they're dumped in very disparate ways, but I think it's purposeful. This was planned from the beginning that this was how things were going to play out. And everything is probably geared towards Russell Dermott being sort of the ultimate target of whatever this thing was, given the nature of how his wife was beaten to death and how he necessarily wasn't. In the last days, a break in the case. Listen. The case of the double homicide of a beloved couple in a gated community on Lake Oconee

goes cold for nearly 10 years until Sheriff Howard Sills announces a break in the case. DNA is recovered from Russell Derman's shirt and is sent to a private lab for examination. The private lab confirms the DNA does not belong to Russell or Shirley Derman. Putman County Sheriff Howard Sills says he believes the DNA is from the person who committed the murder or at least somebody who was a party to the crime. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The double homicide of Russell and Shirley Derman rocks their gated community. Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills says based on the evidence,

Russell Derman was murdered elsewhere, but was beheaded in the garage where his body was found. The sheriff says the injuries Shirley Derman was murdered elsewhere, but was beheaded in the garage where his body was found. The sheriff says the injuries Shirley Derman sustained would have left physical evidence that was not found in the Derman's home. Nor evidence that the beheading of Russell Derman occurred there in the home as well. Where were they killed? What was the purpose of bringing their bodies back to that gated community home right on the waterfront of Lake Oconee. We are now hearing about new DNA straight out to the sheriff, Sheriff Howard Seals. Where did you discover? Where was the new DNA? We initially took all of our physical evidence out to Othram. Othram did locate and did identify DNA. There was some further work that needed to be done

and they have referred me to Sorenson Labs out in Utah. And they have found DNA that they are still working on trying to isolate that we at least know both Othram and Sorenson found DNA that does not belong to Shirley or Russell Derman. And Sorenson is still doing whatever they're doing there, trying to narrow that down enough where we can get it into CODIS. So I reached out to them. Initially, the state lab said there was no DNA. I'm not being critical of them.

I don't know the technology at the time, other than the Dermans themselves. But after learning of the good work of Botheram and Sorenson and consulting with the FBI, that's where I decided to take stuff. So we're optimistic that that's going to eventually turn up something here, hopefully pretty soon. To Dr. Kristen Milliman joining us, Chief Development Officer at Authram, tell me about the discovery of the new, well, it's not really new DNA, it's newly discovered DNA.

Where was it and how did you find it? It was on the clothing and I guess how we found it is the sheriff sent the evidence here to see if there was any unknown contributor profile that could be detected that wasn't previously detected. Once that was detected at our lab, we had to follow the interim policy for this type of technology. And that means that any DNA that is found needs to be uploaded to CODIS first and see if there's a hidden CODIS or a matching CODIS. Once there's not a hidden CODIS, then we can proceed and build a profile. If there is a hidden CODIS, obviously the case can be solved that way. A lot of the times there isn't. If there isn't, then we can proceed and build a profile

that has hundreds and hundreds of thousands of markers rather than 20 and upload that to genealogical databases consented for law enforcement use, allowing us to infer the identity of the perpetrator. And so Sorensen is a traditional forensic lab that can build these CODIS profiles quickly and get them uploaded. That is what's happening now. And if there is a hit, that case can be solved that way. If there is no hit, then we can take over the DNA sample and build one of these genealogical profiles that will help us infer the identity of the person that left DNA at the crime scene. We can't say it's

the perpetrator, but we can say someone that left DNA on their body at the crime scene during that time period. The clothes that they were wearing at the time they were murdered. Okay, question. Dr. Crystal Middleman joining us. Dr. Middleman, when I say how do you find the DNA on the clothing, specifically what do you put it under a microscope? Do you treat it in some way? How do you see what other scientists could not see? Well, DNA techniques should be much the same and standardized, but maybe we took a section of that clothing that was different than sections that had been tested in the past. How forensic testing works is you section different areas of a bedsheet, clothing, anything that might have been found at the crime scene. And then you extract DNA from all of those cuttings.

And sometimes you're lucky and you actually find a profile that doesn't belong to either one of the victims. And that is what the sheriff is alluding to in this case. Dr. Middleman, it's amazing to me the work that you do at OTHRAM. You've actually found something that other scientists at the time couldn't see. And it may hold the key to not just a double murder, but the double murder of beloved grandparents, a beheading. And when I look at Mrs. Derman to imagine someone tying her body to a cement chunk and throwing her into that cold, dark water. These perps have got to be found and your work may make that happen. If $25,000 reward,

but there is also a commitment from Metropolitan Life Insurance for 30 grand. Let's hope we can use it. Total of $55,000 in promised reward for the discovery of information leading to the resolution of this double murder. We stop now and remember American hero police officer Garrett Crumby, Huntsville, Alabama. Just 36, Officer Crumby shot and killed in the line of duty. Survived by grieving wife Taylor, loving parents William and Janet, two dogs and two cats, four furry children. American hero police officer Garrett Crumby. Thank you to our guests for being with us, especially to Dr. Kristen Middleman from Off-Ram Labs and of course to Sheriff Howard Seals, still on the case there in Putnam County. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.