01/03/2021
Russell and Shirley Dermond had been married for 62 years and lived at Reynolds Plantation, a gated community on Lake Oconee in Georgia.
On May 6, 2014, a neighboring couple went to their residence when the Dermond’s failed to show up for a party a few days prior and phone calls went unanswered. Entering through the screened porch where Russell Dermond, 88, would watch the Braves on TV nothing seemed amiss. Shirley Dermond, 87, kept a meticulous home. Nothing was out of place. There was no sign of a struggle, let alone a homicide. Then, inside the garage of the 3,200-square-foot home, one of the neighbors found Russell Dermond’s body, slumped behind one of the couple’s cars. Upon closer inspection, they discovered something beyond macabre — a detail that would escalate this case into the national spotlight.
Dermond’s head was missing, and so was his wife. Ten days after her husband’s body was found, some fishermen on Lake Oconee turned up the bloated body of Shirley Dermond, floating on the water, about six miles from her home.
The 88-year-old Russell Dermond, a World War II veteran, is believed to have been shot in the head and was beheaded afterward. His wife, Shirley, was beaten to death and her body taken six miles away by boat to one of the deepest portions of Lake Oconee. Her body was anchored by two 30-pound cinder blocks that were placed into a nylon bag and then thrown into the lake.
The case remains as much a mystery today as is it did when the crimes first happened.
Anyone with information about this unsolved double-murder is asked to call the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office at 706-485-8557.
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