Going West: True Crime - The Lake Oconee Murders // 121

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

In 2014, a successful, retired couple living on a beautiful lake in Georgia hadn’t been heard from for multiple days in a row. But after some neighbors went over to their home searching for them, they were nowhere to be found. But upon checking the house again days later, neighbors found one of them brutally slain in the garage, and the other was missing. That is, until some locals made a gruesome discovery in the water. This is the story of Shirley and Russell Dermond. Also known as the Lake Oconee Murders. *BONUS EPISODES* patron.com/goingwestpodcast *CASE SOURCES* https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-supreme-court/1185576.html https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/129547961/mark-christian-dermond https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/129892189/shirley-bell-dermond https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/129350580/russell-joseph-dermond https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/129547961/mark-christian-dermond https://www.dailynews.com/2014/06/13/beheading-of-husband-killing-of-wife-so-baffling-even-alligators-are-suspects/ https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/investigations/gone-cold-the-murders-at-lake-oconee-4-years-later-elderly-couples-son-opens-up/67-549362307 https://www.publicpolicerecord.com/georgia/doc-prisoner/MAJOR_TROY/0001097228 https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/where-you-live/dermond-family-established-in-restaurant-business/93-299102252 https://darkideas.net/russell-and-shirley-dermond-the-beheading-at-lake-oconee/ https://www.unionrecorder.com/news/new-technology-to-be-used-in-unsolved-murder-case/article_943dc312-971b-11ea-bcfa-875703a04928.html https://www.lakeoconeenews.us/article/6-years-later Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Teeth and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Howdy going west gang, how's everybody doing? Hope you're having a great week so far. Thank you for tuning in to Going west. Howdy going west gang, how's everybody doing? Hope you're having a great week so far. Thank you for tuning in to going west. Really excited that Spring is now here, the sun's coming out, super excited about that and speaking of, we just released a new bonus episode over on our Patreon about the Cowden family.

It's a family who went missing while camping in Oregon. So if you're thinking about doing a Memorial Day camping trip, this episode will scare the shit out of you. Yeah, I was gonna say like this. It's probably not the best episode I'll ever listen to. But maybe it is because now you'll be extra cautious. So it's a really interesting story that Couten family. We have 40 bonus episodes now full length,

ad free on our Patreon. Patreon.com slash going west podcast is what keeps the show going so we appreciate everybody who joins over there and for everybody who does we give you a little shout out in the end of the episode the normal episode so this episode will have some at the end. Just clear that up. Alright guys, let's get right to it today. This is episode 121 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 2014, a successful retired couple living on a beautiful lake in Georgia hadn't been heard from from multiple days in a row. But after some neighbors went over to their home searching for them, they were nowhere

to be found. Upon checking the house again days later, neighbors found one of them brutally slain in the garage and the other was missing. That is until some locals made a gruesome discovery in the water. This is the story of Shirley and Russell Durmond, also known as the Laco-Coney Murders. Surely Bell Will Cox was born on July 7, 1926 in Maywood, New Jersey, and at the age of 24, she married the love of her life Russell Durmond on December 15th, 1950. Russell was born on June 6th, 1925, just one town away from Shirley in Hackensack, New Jersey, and Russell was in the US Navy and he served in World War II, but a few years after the war ended,

he and Shirley tied the knot and began having children. They had four kids, so three sons and one daughter, Keith Bradley, Mark and Leslie, and to them, family was everything. Early on the family made their move to Roswell, Georgia, which is outside Atlanta, where Russell owned multiple Hardee's restaurants, and by multiple, I mean 19 franchises over time, as well as some Wendy's restaurants, which, by the way, Hardee's and Wendy's for those who don't know, are both fast food

restaurant chains here in the United States. Russell even had been an executive for a clockman manufacturer in New York, so he was very hard working, definitely a business man. Shirley was an avid bridge player and loved her crossword puzzles, and she had a skill for writing and also really enjoyed gardening at her Georgia home. Russell was like I said very hard working, but he took any opportunity to gulf, and he also enjoyed reading, taking scenic walks, and enjoying anything that involved being around his family and friends. Russell retired at the age of 68 in 1994 and passed the family business down to two of

their sons, Bradley, who also worked in real estate and Keith, who were very interested in the restaurant industry. So they owned German food services for a while before acquiring another fast food operating company, which was a $14 million a year business. After retiring, he and Shirley moved to their forever home that they had built, a gorgeous million-dollar home and an upscale gated community, and eaten in Georgia right on Lake O'Cony. The house was surrounded by trees and although there were other homes nearby, it was a private home. And the area itself had many different gated communities as well as

golf courses and even a waterfront Ritz Carlton. So pretty upscale area I would say. Eaton is a very safe small town located a little over an hour southeast of Atlanta, and it's known to be the home of a few novelists. An Eaton-ton is Lake O'Cony, an incredibly clean, beautiful, and massive reservoir that stretches about 20 miles across. This man-made lake is home to bass, catfish, and a few other types of fish, so it's pretty much the perfect place for residents and locals to fish. Although there are alligators in the nearby O' Okone River, they don't cross into the lake, so it's safe to swim in, boat in, and just enjoy. Both Russell and Shirley grew up quite religious. So when they moved to this area, they joined the Okone Community Church, and became a part of the community. But

still, they were pretty private people, and often kind of kept to themselves. Neither Russell nor Shirley had siblings, but between their kids, they got nine grandchildren, so their little family grew, and they couldn't have been happier about this, and all the grandchildren loved visiting Shirley and Russell on Lake O'Connie, and they even went to summer camp there every year. But a few years after the move, something tragic happened. On August 30, 2000, Shirley and Russell's son Mark turned 47, and he and a friend named Grady Harris went to buy crack cocaine in Atlanta, Georgia, when two men approached their car demanding money for the drugs. Before anyone knew it, a 25-year-old man named Troy

Major opened fire, shooting Mark Dermand multiple times and killing him. Mark's friend Grady, who was in the passenger seat, had been shot in the leg but didn't die from his injuries like Mark did, so Grady was able to tell the whole story later and identify the men behind his friend's death. Within a month of Mark's murder, Troy Major was indicted for the murder, as well as for felony murder with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, among a few other charges. He was found guilty of all the charges the following year on November 9th 2001, and was sentenced to life in prison. This was about 20 years ago, so he's now in his 40s and remains incarcerated at the state of Georgia Department of Corrections in Atlanta.

This was a devastating loss to the family, and just something that didn't at all need to happen. But the years went on and Shirley and Russell had to carry on with their retirement life and hold the rest of their family tighter than ever. Mark hadn't been living too far from his parents in the Atlanta area, but their other children were living in the neighboring states of Florida and North Carolina. So unfortunately they didn't get to see each other all that often. But for the most part Shirley and Russell had a happy and peaceful life on their lake. They had previously owned boats, but as they got a bit older, they sold them, leaving

their dock empty. But as the summer of 2014 was approaching, they had plenty of other relaxing activities to do, and by the way, at this point Shirley was 87 and Russell was 88, but both had birthdays coming up. But unfortunately, they wouldn't live to see either of them. On Thursday, May 1, 2014, Russell was seen out running errands to a local bank as well as grocery shopping at a public supermarket in their town of Eaton.

He was seen on camera at 2.26pm picking up Shirley's prescription, as well as a loaf of bread and some cucumbers. Later that day after dinner, he and Shirley chatted on the phone with their son Brad, and this was very common these spoke almost every day just to chat, but that was the last time anyone heard from them. That Saturday, May 3rd, Russell and Shirley were supposed to attend a party for the 2014 Kentucky Derby, which, for those of you in other countries or who may not know, it's an annual horse race in Louisville, Kentucky, that in 2014 had gone on for 140 years.

They planned to watch the race on TV from a neighbor's home and kind of just enjoy food and drinks and company, but they did not end up attending. Their friends at the party had no idea why they didn't show since they had planned on it, but just kind of assumed that they had gotten caught up. But the following morning, they really began to worry, so a few of them headed to the German home to check on them, and they did this by walking around the house and calling out for the couple, but they didn't find them anywhere. Then, two days later, on the morning of Tuesday, May 6, so five days after Russell and Shirley

were last heard from, one of the neighbors who had gone over to their house a couple days earlier, her name is Peggy, felt as though she had to check on them again, so she did this with her husband, and what they discovered has haunted them ever since. The door was unlocked so they entered the house and called for the couple, but no one answered. Eventually Peggy's husband entered the garage where he discovered the lifeless, headless, slightly decomposing body of Russell Dermond, lying in a pool of blood between the couple's two cars, a Lincoln town car and Alexis SUV. He immediately

called out to his wife, who ran to the phone and called 911, completely out of breath and horrified she said, yes, I have an emergency. I think I have somebody dead. Oh my God, oh my God! And interestingly enough, the husband had quickly peaked into the garage on May 4th, but didn't see anything, and just noticed that the couple's cars were there, but otherwise he didn't see or smell anything, but he also really didn't enter the garage on the first time. Murder was incredibly uncommon for this area, because as we described earlier, it's an extremely safe, small, and peaceful area. So as soon as the call came in, the sheriff and multiple officers

sped over to the German house in an investigation began immediately. I think it's so interesting that two days before they discovered the body, he was in that garage. I mean, like you said, he didn't really enter. He can just open the door and peeked in, but the fact that he didn't smell anything in that, at that point it was three days later. So I'm kinda like, that's so bizarre. Like, little did he know. Yeah, I mean it's interesting to me that he didn't smell anything. I could understand if he didn't see anything because, like, you know, this has happened to other people.

You know, you peek into a window or a garage. You don't see anything the first time because you're not really looking for anything. That's true. And also I will note that the garage was air conditioned so that did help kind of preserve his body a little bit. So it was slightly decomposing, but not as much as it would have if it had not been so cool in that garage. So it was obvious right away that Russell had been decapitated post-mortem, and this was known since the dried pool of blood under him wasn't very big. Like if this act had been committed while he was still alive, there would be much more blood. Oh yeah, there would be a huge pool of blood on that garage floor.

The house was empty, and not even Shirley was there, so police were originally under the impression that someone had entered the home, murdered Russell, and maybe kidnapped Shirley. But there was no sign of forced entry and nothing had been ransacked or seemingly stolen. As the neighbors stated, the door had been unlocked and they hadn't been seen for days, so it was also the immediate belief that this horrible crime had taken place maybe up to five whole days earlier, and they had only just been finding out about it. Walking through the house was even eerie, noticing that it didn't look at all like the scene of a gruesome murder.

The home was immaculate, right down to Shirley's incomplete crossword puzzle sitting on the kitchen table with a pencil on top. On the dining table sat a laptop with a pair of reading glasses next to it, some jewelry sat nearby undisturbed next to a Netflix movie rental, and in the kitchen area was a thank you card from one of their grandchildren next to a calendar that dated Shirley's upcoming eye surgery. Like everything just seemed normal. The Germans bed was unmade though, so police pondered if the attack had happened during

their sleep. But when investigators tried to retrace the couple's steps, they found that the last known interaction was that call on May 1st with their son Brad. They also found that Russell had run errands that day and was able to pull surveillance footage from both the bank and the public supermarket. Russell German wore tan khaki shorts with a dark green polo shirt, which was a different outfit than the one on his body in the garage. But that outfit was found in the Germans bedroom laid on a chair.

When Russell was killed, he wore a faded red t-shirt, boxer shorts, and a bathrobe, hinting that Russell had either been sleeping when the attack occurred, or he was nearing bedtime. Back in the garage, investigators made note that whoever had killed Russell had put some towels around the pool of blood beneath him, as if in an effort to stop the blood from seeping underneath the garage door, because there was also multiple towels sitting right up next to the garage doors, so it was obvious that the killer wanted this crime to go unnoticed as long as it possibly could. And just to give you guys a bit of a visual, when you arrive at the house, you drive down into the driveway and come up to the two car garage, and then on the opposite side of the house, it slopes down towards the dock and water line.

You can't even see their home from the neighbor's house, and the street itself was very private as well, so this crime just seemed extremely bizarre. Police had to wonder for a moment if surely was it all involved because of the fact that it didn't appear the couple had any enemies, and it's not really a house that you just randomly come upon. Especially since across the street from their driveway, the driveway that leads to the garage, was a wooded area. Russell's feet had blood stains on the bottom of them, and there were dull streaks of blood on the garage floor, insinuating that his body had for whatever reason been dragged a few feet.

His hands were bloody to bruised and upon closer inspection of his hands, the sheriff noticed a bad gash on his left index finger, as if maybe he tried to defend himself against his attacker. On his hand as well were some strands of sandy, blonde hair. The same color hair his wife surely had. It seemed incredibly unlikely that 87-year-old surely could have done this, especially because upon full inspection of the home and property, Russell's head was nowhere to be found. The Germans family was quickly informed of what happened and their son Brad was actually

at his son's baseball game when he got the call that his father had been murdered, and his mother was missing. During the autopsy, the medical examiner was able to determine that the body did indeed belong to Russell Dermond. They had used his driver's license to match his appearance to him before the confirmation was made, but since he had been decapitated, they of course had to be sure. And they confirmed this by matching his fingerprints to the prints that had been taken when he joined the Navy. Whoever had murdered Russell knew exactly what they were doing and took their time decapitating him because the cut was very clean. But whatever tool was used to do so was not found in the home.

On Russell's red t-shirt, forensic testing showed the presence of gunshot residue, which indicated to investigators that Russell had likely been murdered by a gunshot wound to the head, and that his attacker likely removed his head to stop police from being able to track the bullet. It still baffled police where surely was because her cell phone, purse, cash, perfume, makeup, clothes, and you name it was all left in her bedroom. There was no sign that she had been injured because, as we've said, there was no sign of a struggle, but aside from that, the house was fully fingerprinted as well as checked with lumenol, but there didn't appear to be any blood in the house whatsoever except for in the garage by Russell's body. And even in the garage, there was no spatter that would be expected from a gunshot wound and a decapitation.

So the crime seemed just completely stumped the sheriff and everyone involved. To make sure Shirley hadn't been killed and disposed of in the woods, lake or nearby property, a massive search was conducted of the area, using cadaver dogs, boats, a submarine robot, and so on our equipment. But nothing was found. With that, Shirley's photo was blasted on the news as well as billboards to help spread the word in hopes of finding her alive. But 10 days after Russell's body had been found, a couple of fishermen made a gruesome discovery. 53-year-old Dennis Higgs and 65-year-old Ronald Sarayo were enjoying a nice spring day on Lake O'Coney, but as the two men were fishing at around

2.30pm that Friday, they noticed a body bobbing in the water nearby and immediately called 911. In this call, Dennis stated, yes ma'am, we just come out left our house to go fishing near Longshul boat ramp and when we got down towards the dam, Rock Island in that way, and just before you get to Rock Island on the left there, I've seen what appeared to be. We can't get close enough to it, and I don't want to get close enough to it, but it appears like a body floating in the water against the tree over there. An officer arrived to the scene right away and took a patrol boat to the area, and it was there that he saw the bloated and badly decomposed body of a woman, and with that, back up followed to retrieve the body.

Two red-sinder blocks were tied around both the woman's ankles on top of her white socks by a parachute cord. As if whoever put her in that lake had tried to weigh her down, but due to the bloating, she floated back up. And by the way, the average depth is known to be about 21 feet deep, but it can get up to about 225 feet deep depending on where you're at in the lake. Once the body was taken in for testing and dental records were matched, it was confirmed to be the body of 87 year old Shirley Dermond.

She was found wearing green capri pants, a floral short-sleeved shirt, and white shoes. So she wasn't found in sleep where her pajamas like her husband Russell was. Shirley's cause of death was blunt impact to the head, and it appeared that she had been struck at least twice with a circular weapon, possibly a hammer. And this is actually believed to tie in to Russell's gash on his hand. The same gash that had Shirley's hair in the wound. So it's believed here that Russell possibly put his hand on her head to protect her from said weapon.

And then he got hurt in the process and then obviously so maybe Shirley was killed first this kind of paints a little bit of a picture of what happened. And we posted photos of the house as well as a map of the area by the way because the lake stretches across four different counties so it's a very big lake and could then be accessed by a lot of different people. But Shirley's body had been found about 5 miles from their dock by boat and about 11 miles by car. But go check out the maps on our socials at Going West Podcast on Instagram, at Going

West Pod on Twitter, and then Facebook is just going west to crime. Now that they knew how Shirley had been murdered, it stumped them even more as to how there was no blood evidence in the house. So this led investigators to believe that the couple had not been killed inside their home. But then why return Russell's body to the garage and why put Shirley's body in their own lake?

Nothing in this case made sense, not even why this wonderful elderly couple would be met with such a terrifying fate. So a good place to start for investigators were the couple's own surviving adult children, Brad, Keith, and Leslie. Each were incredibly cooperative and willingly took polygraph tests which they all passed,

and there really wasn't much weight to their children being behind the murders anyway. They all had great relationships with each other and none of their children even lived in Georgia. Each had a solid alibi and none were anywhere close to the home, but instead in their own respective states which again was North Carolina and Florida. As we stated, Shirley and Russell lived in a gated community, and at the main gate where a security guard is consistently posted, there's surveillance cameras. However, in a shockingly unfair twist of fate, there had been a storm that knocked out

those cameras, so nothing was recorded over the course of those few days. Meaning if someone had come in through that gate, they were not videotaped. In a tight-gated community like Great Waters, you can't just drive in, but instead, you have to be on an approval list or you have to be buzzed in by a resident. And none of the guards reported anything relating to the Germans to police at the time that they were murdered. This meant that the only plausible way someone could have accessed their home was if one of their neighbors committed these crimes,

or if someone from any of the lake's many entrances had boated to the Germans' dock and entered their property that way. But again, there was no smoking gun, so to speak. There were no clear suspects, and everyone investigators as well as the sheriff felt could have been involved in the case was interviewed and cleared in a timely manner. Since this investigation began, the sheriff has felt confident that more than one person was involved, but months and then years passed and they weren't any closer to solving the murders. Investigators explored the idea that the murders were potentially related to their

son's killing 14 years earlier, but the man involved was still serving his life sentence in prison and again still is to this very day, And it seems highly unlikely that it would have any connection since Mark's murder wasn't known to be premeditated or even personal, it kind of seemed more of an aggressive, random killing. Yeah, it was like a drug deal gone wrong. Right, and also Mark wasn't a drug dealer, he was just an occasional drug buyer, so he wasn't like involved in this kind of work. The Germans had no known issues in their marriage, their finances were in order and routine, and since nothing had been taken from the house,

robbery didn't appear to be the motive. It's as if someone just simply wanted them dead. There were numerous houses on the lake, so if someone really did boat into their home just to murder them, what would be the reason? It just didn't seem to make any sense. Yeah, I mean, it's so weird in this case because you have two elderly people who are waiting. Sweetest can be. Yeah, sweetest can be living out their golden years, relaxing by the lake, and then all of the sudden they're murdered, and you would expect if they're in this nice gated community that something would have been taken from the house, either money or jewelry or something, but it didn't appear that that was the motive, and that just, to me, is mind-boggling.

And by the way, for those of you who are wondering if investigators found any useful DNA evidence or fingerprints, the sheriff stated that no foreign fingerprints were found at the scene, and neither was any foreign DNA. Both Shirley and Russell's phone records had been combed, and no eyewitnesses had come forward with any useful information. Over the years, hundreds of people were interviewed, yet no one stood out. But last year, in 2020, investigators began retesting evidence with newer technology, hoping it would bring forth some new leads,

and it did. Just about two weeks ago, the sheriff released a statement regarding the past year of work that they've been doing with the FBI, and although he can't release any information at this time, he did say, I am currently trying to obtain data of a highly technical nature that I believe will be fruitful. I've obtained some of it, and I have reason to believe that when I obtain the rest of the data, and sort it out, that it may well lead me to a suspect or suspect in this case. I also want to add that, you know, just like he said, there was no foreign DNA or foreign fingerprints or anything like that.

That's as far as they have stated. So if they're working with something right now and they have new kind of technology to work with, we can only assume that they have something to work with DNA-wise. And maybe at the time that they made that statement that oh, we didn't find anything useful, they said that because they didn't have the technology in that moment to use that evidence, but maybe they really then did have evidence

and now it's useful. Right, and you have to think about it this way, the police aren't gonna make a statement about a case unless they have Something going on and even sometimes when they do and they have someone that they're questioning They don't want to release too much information So I think it's really interesting that literally at the beginning of this month of May 2021 He made this statement so this is currently happening. They are currently working still on this case that happened almost exactly seven years ago. Which is good reason for you guys to keep up with it.

And yes, we'll keep you guys updated on any breaks in the case and hopefully very soon police will have a suspect that they'll be able to charge for these horrific murders. If that does happen, we'll do an update episode in the future. As of right now, all we can do is speculate on what people think could have happened to this lovely couple. And these are all theories that police have explored, but with the lack of evidence, it's hard to really go down any of these paths with certainty. One theory is that the Germans were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and yes, it

was their home, so they had every right to be in there and peacefully live out the rest of their lives in that very house. But some wonder if a serial killer or just disturbed person of the area went out on the lake that night looking for trouble, but when they came across the German stunning home, they rang the doorbell, and then the Mayhem began. With this personally, I don't see this being random. I don't know what a motive would be, but if someone just came up to the house on a boat

and killed them, like you would think there would be blood everywhere, and both bodies would have been inside the home. The boat idea makes sense when you think about Shirley's body being five miles away, because you may think well her body probably floated up aways, but then you to consider that she had you know cinder blocks tied to her feet so that means to me that they went to that spot and they dumped her body in that area and then you know few days later it floated up when her body began to blow and decompose. Yeah I mean if we're talking about like the, the manic psycho angle, yeah, I don't know how meticulous that person would be, but in Russell and Shirley's case, this person

was very meticulous because there was almost no blood on the garage floor from the decapitation, so that leads us to believe that was done somewhere else. And then tying up surely to center blocks and putting her in the lake in a very specific location. Yeah, exactly. It's like, why? And I do wish I knew where the closest public dock or boat ramp was, you know, I think that information would help.

And I tried to figure this out, but there was a bunch in that area. So a lot of googling and calling around to see which had public access at this time. And I just couldn't figure that out, so I'm not really sure. And near their house, ish is a bunch of nice condos. There's a golf course right on the water, numerous houses, etc. But if you think that this killer was not a resident on the lake, then have to bring their own boat there, meaning it would have to be small enough

to either put on your roof rack or hitch to your car. And let's see the killer did hitch their boat to their car, and they like going out on Lake O'Connie and maybe even eyed the dormant home on occasion. This doesn't answer the question of, where were they killed? Because did this guy or people really kidnap them, kill them, bring their bodies to the house slash lake,

including a headless freaking body? Like, I don't understand. Yeah, I mean, I know that senseless murders do occur. I mean, it happens, but. Why don't you do it in the house then? I just want to understand if there actually was a motive here. Like, was there a life insurance policy that somebody was going to get or I just I don't know? See that's an interesting angle, but as far as anybody that would have gotten that,

would have likely been the children, and they all had money of their own because they were all successful in their own ways. So I just don't see them doing that and it rocks all at alibis. None of them really did interviews after the murders at all until about four years later in 2018, and Brad, who was the last person to talk to them, came forward. I wonder myself, kind of what phone records show here, because we know that they spoke on the phone the same evening that it's believed that Russell and Shirley were murdered so surely they would have been able to kind of track Brad's whereabouts using his phone same with the other kids and I don't know what the motive would be but I do just want to point out that I was watching this YouTube

video of him kind of doing this interview and a lot of people really sketched out by him. And here's a little clip of something that he said that people commented on. Did you have anything to do with your dad's death? Right. And then all of them, all of you know, my brother and my sister, you know, were nowhere near. I mean, all of us were at our homes, you know, hundreds of miles away kind of thing. And I don't want to harp on that too much, you know, he kind of stutters a little bit and almost avoids her question. I just want to point it out because a lot of people are like, that was weird. But I also don't want to be disrespectful because he did lose his parents in such a brutal

fashion. But I think it's just worth mentioning that there is kind of some questions surrounding this, but not in the sheriff's eyes. The sheriff has completely ruled out all the kids, so I kinda am too. I want to think about this for a second. Why leave Russell exposed in the garage, lying on the floor, but then try to hide surely? Well, exactly. That to me doesn't make sense. You hide one, but you leave the other one out in the open. That's what I'm saying. This is like a lot of work. This isn't just like

Come in bang bang. They're both dead. Like you really thought about this and you really you did a lot of work to get this done and Not to mention that Russell's head. Sorry, but was cut off very cleanly and this person took their time They were not in a rush. They knew what they were doing. What does that tell us? And it was never found. Right. Another thought is that someone was jealous of the Durman's wealth. As we know very well by now, nothing was missing from the home. So this seems like an odd motive. Unless they just wanted the elderly couple killed because they had money after working hard their entire lives to have a cushy retirement.

When they died, their net worth was about 1.5 million, so they lived comfortably, but weren't terribly rich and they also weren't assholes about it. Like they didn't flaunt their money around or make people feel bad for not having money, they were a private, quiet, friendly, church-going couple and they didn't mess with anybody. Although they weren't the only nice house around, it's definitely possible that someone set out to rob them, but then the violent murders occurred and they didn't end up taking anything. It's also worth mentioning that the Germans didn't have a ton of valuables or excess cash

in their home. So maybe somebody entered the home thinking that they could rob them, but then came to find that there wasn't much worth taking. Maybe the killer or killers demanded a surplus of cash, and the Germans didn't have it, so they killed them. But that doesn't explain why they were so brutally murdered. And that brings us to our next topic. So the brutality of Shirley and Russell's murders makes a lot of people feel that the killer

or killers were very angry. So did they know the Germans on a personal basis? Did they have a grudge against them for whatever reason? I mean, Russell wasn't known to have any sketchy business dealings with anyone. And that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't have any, but if he did, it would have been extremely out of character. But with as much digging into his finances, texts, emails, and everything else, police truly believe that they would have found evidence of something. Still, you have to wonder why someone would go to such great lengths to kill Shirley and Russell.

And not just kill, but again, take them from their home, kill them, bring them back, dispose of their bodies, and then figure out what to do with Russell's head. Again, it's just a lot of work. And because of how much work this would have been, to me, it sounds more likely that maybe this was done by a neighbor. And I say this because that would have made the whole killing elsewhere angle a bit easier if they live close by. This also would mean that someone driving up to the house would be more likely versus taking

a boat, because if you live nearby, they wouldn't have had to really worry about passing security at the front gate. But then you also have to remember that a lot of people in the community were older, and maybe less likely to be able to carry out such a crime. And I know that some people kind of talk about the Kentucky Derby, being right then like maybe there were high stakes bets happening amongst these group of friends. If it was done by a neighbor, this neighbor would have had a boat more than likely and had been able to put Shirley out into the water.

They would have been able to commit the murder at their house. You know, like that would make a little bit more sense, but again, why? Yeah, I mean, to me, that's the most plausible theory because think about it. There's security everywhere around that gated community. They're gonna be able to see people coming in and out. They're gonna notice something, if something stranger seems off. Exactly.

And with the lake, again, I don't see somebody being able, some stranger taking them away, committing a murder, and bringing them all the way back. I just feel like, like what you said, you know, if somebody's living in the gated community and they committed this crime, it would be less noticeable to security if that person was roaming around the area, because they'd be like, oh, that person lives here, like no worries. And again, you know, the boat angle, somebody would, somebody living in that area or that community probably

Most people probably have boats, so it's easy for them to go take Shirley's body way out and drop it off Right, and also this is a really big lake and there are a lot of boat rams and such and a lot of people do live on it, but That's kind of why I think that it being a random murder doesn't make sense because it's so big and you just happen to come across their private little home. Yeah, and also think about the fact that this is a community and usually with older people, they kind of stick to their community. They don't really talk to anybody else aside from their neighbors. You know, that's kind of how they live their lives.

So if something got personal, I could see how this could be committed by a neighbor. Yeah, I feel like personally, neighbor angle makes the most sense as far as like the facts go. Oh totally. And I don't want to rule out anything else either, but. Right, I mean, we really can't rule anything out. And there are many other wacky theories in this case that have been ruled out by the sheriff himself, but at the end of the day, we really don't know what happened to the Germans, yet.

But the sheriff has stated many times before that he feels strongly that they knew their attacker. However, we'll see what this new lead brings forth in this investigation. There is a $45,000 reward being offered for information that leads to the killer or killers of Shirley and Russell Durmond. If you have any information, please call the Putnam County Sheriff's Office at 706-485, 8557. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode.

Remember, keep yourself updated in this case. There's some stuff happening right now, and it's pretty crazy. Yeah, I know a lot of other true crime podcasts have covered this one and I really tried to stay away from cases like that, but I feel like because this happened so recently, because there is a new lead, it's important that everybody knows about this case and is keeping their ears open and doing whatever they can to help figure out what happened here. And if you guys have any theories, remember you can always message us or just leave us,

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