Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Few clues & many questions in Georgia beheading cold case

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Few clues & many questions in Georgia beheading cold case · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph Channel
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Speaker 1: one two. The way Shirley and Russell Derman died, the
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Speaker 1: way their bodies were found, and what had been done
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Speaker 1: to them as they both neared their ninetieth birthdays, it
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Speaker 1: was beyond heinous. Why would someone decapitated Russell dermots and
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Speaker 1: year old retired man living out his golden years with
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Speaker 1: his wife in the beautiful lake community in Georgia? Why
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Speaker 1: would someone murder his eighty seven year old wife, Shirley
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Speaker 1: and dump her body in the lake five miles from
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Speaker 1: their home. In the years that have followed, no reasons
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Speaker 1: or explanations have emerged, nor any suspects. Is there something
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Speaker 1: in the Dermans past that would relate to some form
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Speaker 1: of a motive here? Or is this just a random crime.
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Speaker 1: They're still out there and by God, they're capable of
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Speaker 1: doing anything. They had no enemies. They led a quiet
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Speaker 1: life on a lakeside, perfectly happy. Two peas in a pod,
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Speaker 1: a cop and a saucer. That's who they were. They
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Speaker 1: were both found dead beheaded. Beheaded is in above the
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Speaker 1: fold of every article written about them. Beheaded? Why I
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Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, this is crime stories, and I want answers.
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Speaker 1: I want answers about Russell Derman. Russell and Shirley Derman,
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Speaker 1: their bodies found floating in Lake o'coney. Shirley's body was
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Speaker 1: with a horrific blow to the head and then the
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Speaker 1: beheading that to this day still consumes the local sheriff.
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Speaker 1: Joining me right now is a special guest, Joe Kovac
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Speaker 1: from the Making Telegraph, along with Cold Case Investigator, actually
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Speaker 1: the director of the Cold Case Institute, Cheryl McCullum. Guys,
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Speaker 1: I tell you what if these were my parents, I
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Speaker 1: would be a hound from hell until I found out
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Speaker 1: who did this to them, to hit beat my mother,
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Speaker 1: to be head my father. Kovac, thank you so much
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Speaker 1: for being with us. Let's start at the beginning. What
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Speaker 1: do we know about them? This couple of Russ and
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Speaker 1: Shirley Derman were to attend a Kentucky Derby viewing party
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Speaker 1: one of the neighbors houses, and that's Saturday. They never
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Speaker 1: showed up and a couple of days go by and
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Speaker 1: their neighbors go by their house and discover the body
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Speaker 1: of Russ Dermand, headless in his car poard between a
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Speaker 1: Lincoln Town car and Alexis suv parked in their two
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Speaker 1: car garage. The door was shut. Wait a minute, Cheryl,
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Speaker 1: did you get that it was Kentucky Derby weekend? You
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Speaker 1: know when everybody hasn't goes to parties and watches what
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Speaker 1: the Derby's like three minutes long, and it's a big
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Speaker 1: to do. Now, you know, my coworker d every year
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Speaker 1: wears a new hat. Whether she's sitting alone in her
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Speaker 1: den in New York City, which I call the teacup
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Speaker 1: because that's about how big her whole apartment is, she
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Speaker 1: will have on a hat and she will have probably
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Speaker 1: a tray of let's just say she's not afraid of
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Speaker 1: a cocktail. Let's just I don't know how many men
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Speaker 1: julips are disappear mysteriously that day. Okay, but people really,
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Speaker 1: as we say down south, put on the dog. They
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Speaker 1: really know how to celebrate the Kentucky Derby. Now you
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Speaker 1: said that they were invited to a Kentucky derby, shn Dick.
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Speaker 1: Did they go to it? No? They didn't. Could they
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Speaker 1: have been missing at that time? Were they expected to
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Speaker 1: be there? Yeah? They were? And and that was what
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Speaker 1: again a couple of days, Cheryl, there's our timeline. That's
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Speaker 1: the beginning of the timeline. I would say right there,
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Speaker 1: the timeline is from Saturday to Tuesday. In that time frame,
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Speaker 1: nobody saw them or heard from me. So let's just
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Speaker 1: start the timeline, we think, unless you're about to tell
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Speaker 1: me something new, like they missed something else, so they
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Speaker 1: didn't answer the phone, or they didn't show up for
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Speaker 1: dinner somewhere, We'll start the timeline at the Kentucky Derby
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Speaker 1: party unless I hear different. Okay, Joe Kovac with me
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Speaker 1: making telegraph and Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Institute,
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Speaker 1: So no one really checks on them for a couple
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Speaker 1: of days because just assumed they just didn't want to
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Speaker 1: get out and come to the party. Cheryl, do we
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Speaker 1: have any idea who it was that found them? I
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Speaker 1: doubt it was the police, So that leaves either neighbors
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Speaker 1: or relatives. Do you have any idea who found them?
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Speaker 1: They were neighbors and good friends, Cheryl. What happened? Then? Well, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: we have the husband who was found dead in the
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Speaker 1: car poard and at this point they fear that the
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Speaker 1: wife has been kidnapped. She's need in the car poards.
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Speaker 1: She's not in the house. She's not in any of
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Speaker 1: the cotunity of the neighborhood. You know. I'm thinking about
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Speaker 1: the husband in the car poord Um. Their car poard,
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Speaker 1: as I recall, had a a door that comes down
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Speaker 1: over it. Is that right, Joe was a two car garage,
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Speaker 1: and there was a door I think that goes in
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Speaker 1: from the kitchen of their house into the carboard that
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Speaker 1: was closed, right, And there are two doors facing the driveway. Also,
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Speaker 1: this is a lake house, so Cheryl, somebody goes in
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Speaker 1: and it seems like to see this in my mind,
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Speaker 1: seems so um planned to actually be head someone and
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Speaker 1: kill two people at the same time. But the fact
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Speaker 1: that he was in the garage would suggest to me
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Speaker 1: either one of two things, that he was trying to
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Speaker 1: leave or that he was out in his garage puttering around,
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Speaker 1: and that is when he was ambushed. A lot might
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Speaker 1: depend on which way he was headed. What do we
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Speaker 1: know about the way in which he was found, Cheryl.
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Speaker 1: He was laying there with his head missing. We don't
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Speaker 1: know directions. There's no full entry, there's inside of a stream.
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Speaker 1: It was just he's right there. Let's go out to
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Speaker 1: the lines. Joining us. Right now is Mike from Kennon Saw, Hi, Mike,
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Speaker 1: what's your questions? I was just wondering what business that
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Speaker 1: the family was in. The sounds like a uh professional hit,
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Speaker 1: and what kind of business or entanglements they may have
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Speaker 1: had that would have prompted something like this. Why do
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Speaker 1: you say, Mike from Kinna Saw that it sounds like
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Speaker 1: a professional hit, because that's my opinion too. Go Ahead.
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Speaker 1: Didn't sound like there very much evidence, nobody saw anything. Um,
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Speaker 1: you know, it just sounds like it was very well
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Speaker 1: organized and well, very well thought out. Well, you know
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Speaker 1: what did it for me, Mike? The beheading, because that's
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Speaker 1: something you don't see every day. You see hit and runs,
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Speaker 1: you see domestic violence, shooting, um asphyxiation of children, people
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Speaker 1: killing for insurance money, burglay has gone wrong, revenge killings,
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Speaker 1: not too many of those, but a beheading and the
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Speaker 1: murder of this couple too people at once. But the
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Speaker 1: beheading is what really did? I mean, how rare is that?
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Speaker 1: Cheryl McCullum from the Cold Case Institute. I mean, you
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Speaker 1: just don't see a beheading every day, Cheryl. I can
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Speaker 1: say that anecdotally, it's extraordinarily rare, especially with a couple
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Speaker 1: like this um for all intensive purposes. They had no enemies,
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Speaker 1: they didn't owe large about some money. They weren't, you know,
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Speaker 1: active in this underworld, so to speak. So it truly,
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Speaker 1: it's so rare nancy that it is he as you
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Speaker 1: hear it, everything else should stop. Russ Derman was found
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Speaker 1: dead by friends who had dropped by to check on
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Speaker 1: him and his wife the morning of May six, after
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Speaker 1: they did not show up that weekend at a Kentucky
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Speaker 1: derby party. His headless body was found lying in a
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Speaker 1: pool of blood, and the families two car garage surely
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Speaker 1: was then discovered. First they thought she had been kidnapped.
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Speaker 1: How was her body found? And I'm gonna throw that
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Speaker 1: out to Joe Kovac. Ten days go by after the
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Speaker 1: grizzly discovery in that carboard, some fishermen out on Lake
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Speaker 1: o Coney saw something floating in the water and it
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Speaker 1: was Shirley's body, faced down and tied to her legs
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Speaker 1: or tied to her body were two pound concrete bricks.
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Speaker 1: Oh my stars, Oh, Cheryl, Cheryl, did you hear what
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Speaker 1: Kovac just said? Waits? So this was absolutely not somebody
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Speaker 1: breaking in at the end burglarizing, and the couple comes
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Speaker 1: in and they kill them. You don't, you don't hang
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Speaker 1: around to put weights on somebody. And you said ten
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Speaker 1: days past, ten days, they're running up the wrong tree
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Speaker 1: for ten days, thank you, she's kidnapped when right there,
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Speaker 1: literally in their backyard is the vacation spot Lake o Coney.
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Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, guys something. I took my children
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Speaker 1: the other day hiking along the Chattahoochee. The whole time,
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Speaker 1: I'm so I kept thinking, please don't let a dead
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Speaker 1: body go by. Please don't let a dead body go by.
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Speaker 1: Because see, in my mind, we buddied the studio staring
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Speaker 1: at me, because all I can think about are all
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Speaker 1: these cases, Cheryl, and of course, uh the Wayne Williams
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Speaker 1: case where he got caught throwing his last we hope
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Speaker 1: was his last victim over the side of the bridge
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Speaker 1: to go float down the river. And I just couldn't stop.
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Speaker 1: I couldn't help it. You think I've been doing this
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Speaker 1: too long? Anyway, I'd say, oh, look at that little butterfly.
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Speaker 1: Please don't let there be a dead body. Please don't
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Speaker 1: let there be a dead body. Anyway. Um So that
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Speaker 1: was my day. Back to this ten days past, how
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Speaker 1: crucial was that Cheryl. The ten days they lost it
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Speaker 1: was so crucial. But again, there's very little evidence in
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Speaker 1: the home. Now because she was concealed in water, there's
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Speaker 1: less evidence on her. So you've got two Curry two
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Speaker 1: crime scenes, and you should at this point started a
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Speaker 1: parallel investigation. Well, the reality is, although I'm saying, oh,
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Speaker 1: they lost ten days, let's think this through just a moment.
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Speaker 1: Because they knew they had a crime scene, they knew
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Speaker 1: there was a murderer, so they were processing it as
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Speaker 1: a murder. The only thing they didn't have, the missing
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Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle was surely So they find her body,
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Speaker 1: and what do they determine was the cause of death?
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Speaker 1: Joe Blunt force, she might have been beaten to death
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Speaker 1: with perhaps a hammer. Why do you say, perhaps they
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Speaker 1: couldn't get any of the shape of the hammer. That's
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Speaker 1: one of the few things you can get a shape
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Speaker 1: from the indentations on the body, is a hammer. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: And I guess being in the water for ten days
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Speaker 1: and may have obscured some of that, but the water
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Speaker 1: washed away perhaps a lot of trace evidence impact. But
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Speaker 1: that's their supposition anyway. Just so your listeners have an
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Speaker 1: idea uh, this later, This ain't no pond we're talking about.
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Speaker 1: Shirley was found five miles from her house by water.
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Speaker 1: As you know, Nancy uh o' coney, there is a
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Speaker 1: twenty square mile impoundment. As Sherriff Howard Phill says, it's
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Speaker 1: surrounded by big houses golf courses. Um. If you take
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Speaker 1: our twenty east out of downtown Atlanta, about an hour
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Speaker 1: or so, about halfway to Augusta or the South Carolina border,
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Speaker 1: you'll kind of come to a big lake. And uh,
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Speaker 1: as you cross the northern tip of Lake o Cony
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Speaker 1: there on Interstate twenty, I guess it's about five or
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Speaker 1: six miles down the water towards the Dermot House. To
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Speaker 1: the Dermot House. Um, their place was about a seven
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Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollar house that overlooked a cove there. And
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Speaker 1: that one of the things about this is not only
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Speaker 1: did they did they live in a cove by lake
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Speaker 1: that you have trouble seeing from the water even today.
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Speaker 1: They were also in a cul de sac that was
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Speaker 1: surrounded by trees. So it was the perfect place for
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Speaker 1: something to happen and nobody to see. Do we know
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Speaker 1: whether there was a sex attack on her? I don't
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Speaker 1: think there was, Cheryl has that never been released. Was
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Speaker 1: there a sex attack on her? It has not been released, Nancy.
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Speaker 1: But that's one thing that she was placed in the
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Speaker 1: water that you would think about, because water usually is
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Speaker 1: to conceal another crimp, to wash something away. Well, so
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Speaker 1: it's something let's think about. I'm a little stuffed right here,
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Speaker 1: because if there has been a sex attack a um
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Speaker 1: a rape for instance, uh, traditional traditionally known, right, there
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Speaker 1: would still be DNA evidence after ten days in the water,
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Speaker 1: Cheryl possibly, huh No, no, no, I've just got to
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Speaker 1: say that if there were not if there was normal
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Speaker 1: penal vaginal rape, there would be degraded, yes, but there
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Speaker 1: would still be ten days later, there would still be
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Speaker 1: INDISHA of spermonozoa. Absolutely correct, because after x number, after
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Speaker 1: X number of hours on spermanozoa, the head comes off
14:27
Speaker 1: and after X number of hours the tail comes off.
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Speaker 1: But d n A would still be there d n
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Speaker 1: A that could be traced. Well, here's the reason I say,
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Speaker 1: possibly if this happened, you know, it depends on whether
14:42
Speaker 1: or not a prophylactic would use. There's other elements there
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Speaker 1: that might have been Again, for consulement. So possibly, Okay, Cheryl,
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Speaker 1: you you say tomato, but I'm gonna say pumpkin squash
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Speaker 1: on this one, because when you come in and that
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Speaker 1: and that is your intent to rape. I don't think
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Speaker 1: anybody's really thinking about using a condom. But but, but,
15:08
Speaker 1: but the reality is, I don't think she was sex attacked.
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Speaker 1: I don't think that happened because of the because of
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Speaker 1: the mode of killing. So um um, you know, arguing
15:23
Speaker 1: over nothing, because I really do not believe, given the
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Speaker 1: circumstances under which they were found, that this was about
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Speaker 1: a sex attack. This was a planned event. But why
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Speaker 1: That's where we stand right now. But there's so much more.
15:42
Speaker 1: We are trying to figure out. A cold case, A
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Speaker 1: lovely couple murdered brutally, and people only realize something is
15:53
Speaker 1: wrong when they don't show up for the Kentucky derby
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Speaker 1: party they were invited to. Then the discovery of the
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Speaker 1: husband beheaded five miles and ten days later they find
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Speaker 1: his wife floating face down in the Oconee River, And
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Speaker 1: to this day there is not an answer. And this
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Speaker 1: quiet little community, this has never happened before. Question Joe,
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Speaker 1: did they ever find his head? No? And they have looked.
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Speaker 1: They were deputies fanned out for across this neighborhood and
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Speaker 1: across the area, just doing the grid searches and all
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Speaker 1: they could do. At one point, I think that day
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Speaker 1: surely was found in the water. One of the Atlanta
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Speaker 1: TV reporters that asked, couldn't you have done more to
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Speaker 1: find her? And Sheriff Howard Sills replied, will short of
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Speaker 1: bringing in the United States Navy to search this nineteen
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Speaker 1: thousand acre blake, I don't of what we could have done, so,
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Speaker 1: I mean it's not from a lack of hunting it.
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Speaker 1: Searching water is extremely difficult, extremely difficult, and speaking as
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Speaker 1: an experienced diver, I can tell you even a dive
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Speaker 1: team in lake water, it's very difficult because it is murky,
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Speaker 1: it is um on the bottom, can be muddy, sandy,
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Speaker 1: the water is dark. It's very very hard to do
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Speaker 1: a dive search. And that's a good point that you
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Speaker 1: bring that up. Yeah, speaking of diving, she was found
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Speaker 1: in fifty feet of water. This is not far from
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Speaker 1: the Wallace Damn where she was dumped. The other thing
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Speaker 1: about Lake o Coney is it's a man made lake
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Speaker 1: and what's just under the water in those trees, and
17:49
Speaker 1: there's still the lake was built in or so and
17:53
Speaker 1: underwater there's still these It's a graveyard of old tree
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Speaker 1: stumps and some of them just beneath the surface. So
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Speaker 1: she was even tangled up in one of those trunks.
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Speaker 1: It's a miracle she came to the top. I was
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Speaker 1: just about to say, instead of trashing the cops on
18:09
Speaker 1: this one, better praise the cops. It is a miracle
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Speaker 1: she was ever found, and her being found that close
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Speaker 1: to the wallace damn, I am a strong feeling that
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Speaker 1: they dumped her for a distance away, believing she should
18:25
Speaker 1: never be found. We were talking about a couple found
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Speaker 1: beheaded and the wife thrown near a deep, deep damn
18:34
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18:42
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18:54
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19:46
Speaker 1: don't show it a Kentucky derby party. A couple of
19:49
Speaker 1: days later, as the wheak goes on, neighbors check in
19:52
Speaker 1: on this couple defined the worst possible scenario. The wife
19:59
Speaker 1: is gone. Shirley is missing, believed to be kidnapped. The
20:03
Speaker 1: husband has been found beheaded, beheaded in the garage. His
20:10
Speaker 1: head has never been recovered never Now. What does that
20:16
Speaker 1: say about who the perpetrators are? Cheryl Nancy. It says
20:21
Speaker 1: that they could have kept of the calling card in
20:23
Speaker 1: a trophy. They could have taken it as a calling
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Speaker 1: card to show other people, hey, look what we did.
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Speaker 1: You better behave yourself. Um. They could have used it
20:31
Speaker 1: with the light to force her into the boat, because
20:35
Speaker 1: again you're talking, she was taken away, she was not
20:39
Speaker 1: killed there. Well, first of all, let me respond to
20:42
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Number one, it was not a calling card,
20:46
Speaker 1: because when you have a calling card, you give the
20:49
Speaker 1: card to somebody. Do you really think, Cheryl McCullum, Come on,
20:54
Speaker 1: you and I have analyzed so called conspiracy cases our
20:57
Speaker 1: whole life. I guess since we were in the third grade.
21:00
Speaker 1: It feels like, you know, nobody can keep their yap shut.
21:04
Speaker 1: Uh No, I agree with you. I'm just saying that's
21:08
Speaker 1: one of them. If you're looking at it, whether or
21:09
Speaker 1: not this was a hit, that's something the mob would
21:12
Speaker 1: tend to do. Okay, I agree with that. I agree
21:14
Speaker 1: with that his heads in that lake. I do. I
21:17
Speaker 1: believe it's in the lake. But again with her hold on,
21:20
Speaker 1: I heard Kovac join in that he thinks so too,
21:24
Speaker 1: because think about its Cheryl. What Joe Kovac told us
21:27
Speaker 1: a few moments ago about the bottom of that lake.
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Speaker 1: I mean, if you're doing say, let's just say size
21:32
Speaker 1: skin sonar, you're going to see the outline of trees
21:37
Speaker 1: and stomps then never find it. Never if it were
21:44
Speaker 1: in that lake. Never. I could just see them taking
21:48
Speaker 1: his head by the hair and throwing it right out
21:51
Speaker 1: in the middle of that lake. And why, Cheryl, uh
21:56
Speaker 1: do you believe? And I'm not so sure I agree
21:59
Speaker 1: with you on this one. Why do you believe she
22:02
Speaker 1: was killed elsewhere? I think she could have easily been
22:04
Speaker 1: a soft kill, like asphyxiation or a blow to the head. Well,
22:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't blow the head. Uh. And I don't think
22:10
Speaker 1: they took her right on a boat to do it.
22:12
Speaker 1: I think they killed her right there and then dumped
22:15
Speaker 1: her body. Why do you think she wasn't killed right there?
22:18
Speaker 1: All right? Stay with me, Okay, stay with me. It's
22:21
Speaker 1: like we used to be in the war room. I'll try.
22:23
Speaker 1: She was treated differently. Her head was not severed. But
22:28
Speaker 1: she's taken and put in a location that is five
22:31
Speaker 1: miles away, five boat. She is tied down with cinder blocks.
22:37
Speaker 1: They did not want her to reappear. Why might just
22:40
Speaker 1: kill her? They had her beside him they treated her differently, Nancy,
22:45
Speaker 1: and that needs to be focused on. Oh, that's really
22:48
Speaker 1: you know, you should probably be something like the director
22:50
Speaker 1: of a cold case institute. Cheryl, back to you, Joe,
22:54
Speaker 1: Joe Kovac, what about that? That's actually very significant that
22:58
Speaker 1: she was treated differently. And do you believe Joe she
23:01
Speaker 1: was taken somewhere else to be killed And this is
23:04
Speaker 1: actually very critical. Yeah, Cheryl brings up a great point,
23:08
Speaker 1: and she's probably on the right track. I mean, I
23:11
Speaker 1: say probably because these things no one knows that this
23:14
Speaker 1: is all speculation, but still there's probably no doubt that
23:17
Speaker 1: the killers separated the couple. That that's at least one
23:21
Speaker 1: of the theories from the investigation, that that these bad
23:24
Speaker 1: guys are bad guy. Most likely bad guys separated them,
23:28
Speaker 1: took surely to some other location, and perhaps perhaps it
23:32
Speaker 1: was some kind of an extortion try that they played
23:35
Speaker 1: them against one another, that they use leverage a guess
23:40
Speaker 1: against one another to find something that perhaps this couple
23:44
Speaker 1: who'd been married for sixty eight years didn't have. And
23:47
Speaker 1: in the end maybe they thought these this couple of
23:50
Speaker 1: dermots had money and they couldn't find it. So this
23:54
Speaker 1: is the ending um it might have been that way anyway. Um.
23:59
Speaker 1: But again these are all guesses. But the fact that
24:02
Speaker 1: they were taking parted in some way. I wonder if
24:06
Speaker 1: there were phone calls made back and forth saying, look
24:09
Speaker 1: what we're doing to tell us where the money is,
24:11
Speaker 1: tell us where whatever it is is. And when you
24:14
Speaker 1: can't tell somebody something that doesn't exist. Uh, Cheryl, I'd
24:19
Speaker 1: like to hear your response to that theory. It's it's
24:22
Speaker 1: pretty good. And again, Nancy, there's blood in that garage.
24:26
Speaker 1: There's a lack of her blood. They took great time
24:31
Speaker 1: with her. They took her five miles away, They risked
24:36
Speaker 1: being seen, they risked her screaming over water, they risked
24:41
Speaker 1: several things to put her in a different location. So again,
24:47
Speaker 1: my focus I would start with her. Let me ask
24:50
Speaker 1: you this, Joe Kobac from the Making Telegraph. Are we
24:54
Speaker 1: sure that she was taken out onto the water by
24:57
Speaker 1: boat or could it have been by car? Could she
25:00
Speaker 1: had been Is there any location they could have dumped
25:02
Speaker 1: her by car. I've been on the lake a lot
25:04
Speaker 1: that grew up fishing over there and have been there
25:06
Speaker 1: recently by boat. Um, there's where she was. I mean,
25:12
Speaker 1: short of a somebody swimming out there, I mean, which
25:15
Speaker 1: is unlikely. Um, there had to have been a boat involved.
25:18
Speaker 1: There's no bridge there. Um. What is interesting is where
25:21
Speaker 1: they found her isn't far from at least one boat ramp,
25:25
Speaker 1: so again it's also possible. And I think the sheriff
25:29
Speaker 1: early on wondered if this had been done by car
25:32
Speaker 1: and then the disposal part done by boat, that perhaps
25:37
Speaker 1: these killers didn't come by boat in the first place,
25:40
Speaker 1: but secondarily used a boat to dump her body. Now
25:43
Speaker 1: you could argue either way, but I think he thinks
25:46
Speaker 1: that a car came uh to the house at least
25:50
Speaker 1: at some point. Okay, So bottom line, we don't know.
25:52
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with the area as well from having
25:55
Speaker 1: been a camp counselor there uh at the four Age
26:00
Speaker 1: National Park there. Let me get back to the disposal
26:04
Speaker 1: of the body, because you're right. But you know, Cheryl,
26:07
Speaker 1: he was special too, because beheading is very very rare
26:12
Speaker 1: in at least our world, in our country in the US,
26:17
Speaker 1: that's a very very obscure way to dispose of a body.
26:23
Speaker 1: And the fact that his head has never been found
26:26
Speaker 1: it means something. It means something. So Cheryl, the fact
26:31
Speaker 1: that we believe. I see. I was thinking there may
26:34
Speaker 1: have been an overpass of some sort where they could
26:37
Speaker 1: have dumped her, you know, much the way Wayne Williams
26:39
Speaker 1: dumped off into the Chattahoochie his bodies. But you guys
26:43
Speaker 1: are telling me, no, there's no overpass. They would have
26:46
Speaker 1: had to have done it, most likely by boat. See.
26:49
Speaker 1: That adds a lot to who the killers are. Somebody
26:52
Speaker 1: that may have come by boat. Also, did they have
26:56
Speaker 1: a boat dog in their backyard? Yeah? Mr Kvi, they
27:01
Speaker 1: did the Wow. So what does that mean to me
27:08
Speaker 1: that the killer may have come by boat? Does that
27:12
Speaker 1: mean it was somebody that lived on the lake was
27:15
Speaker 1: familiar with the lake. Obviously they had to be to
27:19
Speaker 1: navigate the water and get to the right boat ramp.
27:21
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you agree with that, Joe? I guess you just
27:24
Speaker 1: get in the water and go back the way you came.
27:25
Speaker 1: I mean, did they use GPS that sort of thing
27:29
Speaker 1: to get around? Yeah, there's so many ways to speculate
27:33
Speaker 1: on that. I've often wondered if if this were again
27:36
Speaker 1: playing the other end of it, if it were some
27:37
Speaker 1: random attack, someone cruising down the lake looking for a
27:41
Speaker 1: light on uh in the late in the early spring,
27:44
Speaker 1: then I just don't know if you would have picked
27:47
Speaker 1: that happen somebody cruising around the lake looking for a
27:50
Speaker 1: light on, that it would be completely diametrically opposed to
27:56
Speaker 1: a specific hit you can't have. First of all, somebody
28:00
Speaker 1: cruising around on a boat probably would have money to
28:04
Speaker 1: have a boat. Let's just say it's not a homeless
28:06
Speaker 1: vagrant that wandered in. Somebody is cruising the o'coni with
28:10
Speaker 1: a boat. And you know, I've just mastered GPS in
28:14
Speaker 1: my car, all right, so it's hard for me to
28:17
Speaker 1: imagine doing GPS out on the water. But Cheryl, Yeah, Cheryl,
28:23
Speaker 1: I don't believe it was anybody that needed GPS. I
28:27
Speaker 1: think they knew exactly where they were going. You can't
28:30
Speaker 1: have your cake and eat it too. You can't say, oh,
28:33
Speaker 1: they look for a light on and saw this place
28:37
Speaker 1: and it was a targeted hit. So I was bringing
28:40
Speaker 1: up I think the spectrum being they don't know. But
28:45
Speaker 1: you go from from totally random to total uh take out?
28:50
Speaker 1: Got Okay? Yeah, okay, hold on just one moment, guys,
28:55
Speaker 1: I'm going out to the lines. Max, North Carolina. Hi, Max,
28:58
Speaker 1: what's your question? Well, I've got a couple of questions. Um.
29:02
Speaker 1: First of all, Uh, it likely was someone who killed
29:08
Speaker 1: them who were familiar with the neighborhood. They were local
29:12
Speaker 1: people in my in my opinion, number number one. And
29:16
Speaker 1: then did the police find the couple And I wasn't
29:21
Speaker 1: clear as to what happened with the husband? Did he
29:24
Speaker 1: also disappear but they found her? But also did the
29:29
Speaker 1: police find their their cell phones at their home? And
29:34
Speaker 1: maybe there was some talk over the cell phones in
29:38
Speaker 1: connection with this whole turn Max, this is the case
29:43
Speaker 1: where the husband has found beheaded in the garage and
29:47
Speaker 1: the wife's body is not found for days later, ten
29:52
Speaker 1: days later, five miles away, face down in the O'kney
29:55
Speaker 1: near a damn, a huge damn. And let me understand this, Cheryl.
30:01
Speaker 1: Is there not a bridge going over the damn. She
30:04
Speaker 1: couldn't have been thrown from the bridge. I'm focused on
30:07
Speaker 1: the fact that the killer has a boat. Yeah, there's
30:10
Speaker 1: no bridge, there's no overpath, there's no way to get
30:14
Speaker 1: to that location except for boats. Well, the more questions,
30:18
Speaker 1: especially with a body, and the more questions I asked,
30:22
Speaker 1: the more questions I have. This is what I know
30:25
Speaker 1: for sure. He's beheaded, she's blood and dead. And thrown
30:29
Speaker 1: purposefully into the Oconee River, And to this day the
30:33
Speaker 1: case hasn't been solved, nor has the head been found. Okay,
30:37
Speaker 1: here's another wrinkle, here's another wrench to throw at you.
30:41
Speaker 1: Two to Cheryl McCollum, director of the Coal Case Institute,
30:47
Speaker 1: it doesn't in there. What about the rest of the family, Nancy.
30:52
Speaker 1: This couple had a son that was also murdered years before,
30:56
Speaker 1: and what appeared to be a drug deal gone back.
30:59
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just I'm just taking that and what
31:02
Speaker 1: you just said and working in over and over in
31:05
Speaker 1: my mind, because once you say drugs, all bets are off.
31:10
Speaker 1: Those people are vicious, vicious. What do you think of that,
31:17
Speaker 1: Joe Kovac? I mean, this couple, in no way they
31:22
Speaker 1: were pristine. Their reputations were beyond reproach. So could they,
31:31
Speaker 1: in any way, Joe Kovac, be connected to their son's murder?
31:37
Speaker 1: Could they perhaps know I mean, his killer is in jail.
31:41
Speaker 1: Their son's killer is still in prison. That happened back
31:44
Speaker 1: in two thousand, uh on the west side of downtown Atlanta. Okay,
31:50
Speaker 1: what about that, Cheryl, how does that affect their murders? Well, again,
31:54
Speaker 1: if there's a drug connection, that there's other people that
31:57
Speaker 1: may have known that this victim came from money. Perhaps
32:01
Speaker 1: they wanted to go to the family and extort them
32:03
Speaker 1: for some other reasons. You know, now, that is a
32:05
Speaker 1: good idea. It's that's a good idea because not necessarily mean.
32:09
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's out of a fifth grade novel,
32:12
Speaker 1: all right, that there's this big conspiracy and they think
32:17
Speaker 1: they know more about the case. It could be just
32:19
Speaker 1: as simple as whatever doper killed the Sun had an
32:25
Speaker 1: accomplice or talked from behind bars and told somebody about
32:31
Speaker 1: this couple that they're rich and they have a nearly
32:35
Speaker 1: million dollar house on the water, and this is where
32:38
Speaker 1: they live, and this is what you can find in
32:40
Speaker 1: the house. It could be just that simple, Cheryl McCullum.
32:46
Speaker 1: Could be of course, if it's that simple, Joe Kovac,
32:49
Speaker 1: you would have expected it to be solved by now.
32:51
Speaker 1: If it were just some penny anny doper that came in,
32:57
Speaker 1: you would have not expected such a clean kill. I'm
33:00
Speaker 1: to be had somebody and not leave any DNA evidence.
33:04
Speaker 1: That's almost impossible. And the same with killing her, bludgeoning
33:08
Speaker 1: her dad and then attaching weights to her body and
33:13
Speaker 1: taking her most likely by boat five miles to dump her.
33:17
Speaker 1: Uh No, that's not an amateur. Jocoba is one of
33:21
Speaker 1: the couple's surviving sons. Keith, who lives down in Florida,
33:26
Speaker 1: told me last year. You know, he said, it's bad
33:30
Speaker 1: enough enough to lose both of your parents at the
33:32
Speaker 1: same time, but in the way it happened. He said,
33:35
Speaker 1: you could have had Sherlock Holmes on this case from
33:37
Speaker 1: day one. And he says, I don't know that Sherlock
33:40
Speaker 1: Holmes would have solved it. He said, you do something
33:43
Speaker 1: like this and don't leave any clues, and it's hard
33:46
Speaker 1: to believe. Were there other children or just the one
33:49
Speaker 1: other son. They have a daughter and two sons survived,
33:54
Speaker 1: and what do we know about them, What do they
33:56
Speaker 1: say about I've only spoken to one of their children,
34:00
Speaker 1: and Keith Dermont, who I think is their oldest surviving
34:03
Speaker 1: Have they been cleared? That's what I want to know.
34:05
Speaker 1: I believe so. I believe so again, as much as
34:08
Speaker 1: you can clear someone in an unsolved murder. Was anything
34:12
Speaker 1: taken from the home, Joe, not that they know of
34:16
Speaker 1: the place. Wasn't in the three it was. One investigator
34:20
Speaker 1: told me that the house was kept so clean that
34:23
Speaker 1: you would get one of those you eat off the
34:25
Speaker 1: floor kind of places. It just a beautiful home that
34:28
Speaker 1: was aside from maybe a lamp or two that was
34:32
Speaker 1: moved or nothing to really say. There was a struggle
34:35
Speaker 1: in sounds like more like an ambush more and more.
34:39
Speaker 1: Cheryl McCall, Now, Cheryl, what if anything, What if anything
34:43
Speaker 1: can you tell me about a man saying near the
34:46
Speaker 1: home of Russ and Shirley Derman around the time of
34:50
Speaker 1: their murder. Well, there was a witness that saw a
34:52
Speaker 1: man in the yard. But I believe Joe that the
34:56
Speaker 1: sheriff has excluded him. Yeah, I nobody's excluded. But again
35:02
Speaker 1: that's one of the things with these as these go,
35:04
Speaker 1: the more people you talk to, the more you're at
35:07
Speaker 1: least fairly certain who isn't involved, and that's sometimes half
35:10
Speaker 1: the battle. So you're saying, Joe that the one guy
35:13
Speaker 1: scene near the scene has been excluded. I don't know that.
35:17
Speaker 1: I'm not aware of that. I don't I don't even
35:19
Speaker 1: know that he's ever been identified. It was just a
35:21
Speaker 1: kind of a fantom, I guess you want to call it. Sheryl,
35:25
Speaker 1: what do we know about any potential suspects? My knowledge Nancy.
35:30
Speaker 1: They have none. They have developed no clear motives, They
35:35
Speaker 1: developed no clear person of interest. When law enforcement, including
35:40
Speaker 1: an FBI agent, arrived at the scene where Shirley's body surfaced,
35:46
Speaker 1: they found that she had been tied to cinder blocks
35:49
Speaker 1: before being placed in the water. She had been struck
35:53
Speaker 1: and killed by a blunt force object, possibly a hammer,
35:58
Speaker 1: which has never been found. Hammers, unlike say a baseball,
36:04
Speaker 1: bat or a rock, make a very distinct pattern. With
36:10
Speaker 1: a bat or a cylindrical object, you can sometimes have
36:14
Speaker 1: the shape, but with a hammer you can actually see
36:19
Speaker 1: on a body the indentations from the hammer head or
36:24
Speaker 1: the claw. The problem is she had been in the
36:28
Speaker 1: water for ten days, which greatly degraded the skin surface
36:34
Speaker 1: and could have ruined any evidence from her skin surface
36:38
Speaker 1: Regarding the intentions of a hammer, that is the problem.
36:43
Speaker 1: Would it make a difference, Yes, it would, But we
36:46
Speaker 1: can go on the theory that they think the murder
36:50
Speaker 1: weapon was a hammer. What does that mean was the
36:53
Speaker 1: hammer missing from the home or is the hammer brought in?
36:56
Speaker 1: We know they had to get there by boat by boat.
37:01
Speaker 1: Either getting there or disposing of the body by boat,
37:04
Speaker 1: that is very critical. It is isolating who may have
37:09
Speaker 1: done this someone that had access to a boat, owned
37:12
Speaker 1: a boat, or knew how to get one and use
37:15
Speaker 1: it on the Oconee River. They also knew where the
37:18
Speaker 1: Wallace Dam was because that is where her body was
37:21
Speaker 1: left or floated to. Why it's extremely deep there. The
37:26
Speaker 1: churning of the water of the damn would take her
37:29
Speaker 1: body down, down, down into that underwater forest that Kovac
37:34
Speaker 1: just described for you. Someone you exactly what they were doing.
37:40
Speaker 1: This is not an amateur and these people are still unapprehended.
37:47
Speaker 1: His head has never been found. Boxes scattered throughout Seals's office,
37:56
Speaker 1: who was a law enforcement officer on this case, can
38:00
Speaker 1: pan literally hundreds of interviews with individuals media trying to
38:06
Speaker 1: get information, phone record information, unknown numbers of pages of
38:12
Speaker 1: financial records, bank statements, credit card, tax records, you name it.
38:17
Speaker 1: That is what they continue to sift through. What do
38:20
Speaker 1: we know about their finances? Jocovac Well Russ Derman had
38:24
Speaker 1: been in an executive for a clock manufacturer I think
38:28
Speaker 1: up in the New York City area. They're both New
38:30
Speaker 1: Jersey natives, Shirley and Russell. After retiring or leaving that
38:34
Speaker 1: business in the eighties early nineties, Russell started managing a
38:41
Speaker 1: chain of fast food restaurants around Metro Atlanta. I think
38:44
Speaker 1: they had about ten restaurants, and they've later retired to
38:49
Speaker 1: the lake around the turn of the century. They Okay,
38:52
Speaker 1: hold on just a moment, Sheryl McCollum. That sounds like
38:56
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money. Sounds like a whole lot
38:58
Speaker 1: of money and looks like a whole lot of money.
39:01
Speaker 1: Do you see the house? But age and men said
39:03
Speaker 1: there was no ransom, none of their checks or credit card,
39:07
Speaker 1: not that a value was taken, not their cars, not jewelry, not.
39:12
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is not necessarily that it was
39:15
Speaker 1: a theft case. What I'm saying is could money have
39:20
Speaker 1: been a motive? I mean, there's no known sex attack, question,
39:26
Speaker 1: nothing we know of. It was stolen, right, so what's
39:31
Speaker 1: the motive? Either it was money or information? Did what
39:37
Speaker 1: did they know? Did they know something? Or was it
39:42
Speaker 1: about the money? There's basically there's three reasons. Normally people
39:48
Speaker 1: were going to kill you money, sex or revenge. And
39:52
Speaker 1: if she wasn't sexually attack, you can take sex off
39:54
Speaker 1: the table. We can't tie money to it, so that
39:57
Speaker 1: leaves revenge and this level of violence you would almost
40:01
Speaker 1: want to look at that. Yeah, Sheriff. Still Nancy has
40:06
Speaker 1: said this was I still remember and telling me this.
40:10
Speaker 1: This case screams out for a vicious enemy. But who
40:16
Speaker 1: that is is in the wind, Alan, do give us
40:21
Speaker 1: the tip line place, Nancy. It's the Putnam County Georgias
40:25
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department, that's the lead agency in this investigation. You
40:28
Speaker 1: can reach them with your leads at seven zero six
40:32
Speaker 1: eight five eight five seven Again for tips, the Putnam
40:36
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Department seven zero six eight five eight five seven.
40:42
Speaker 1: Here's a clip from the podcast by Making Telegraph reporter
40:44
Speaker 1: Joe Kovacs interviewing the Putnam County Sheriff about how the
40:48
Speaker 1: bodies were discovered. On the evening that I visited him recently,
40:54
Speaker 1: he sat down in a cushioned chair out on that porch,
40:57
Speaker 1: lit a Coheba cigar, and again telling the story of
41:02
Speaker 1: how the Dermans died and what's been done since. He
41:06
Speaker 1: started at the beginning the late morning of May six,
41:10
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, when those worried neighbors found the headless
41:15
Speaker 1: body of their friend Russell Derman. After calling several times,
41:23
Speaker 1: they decided to drive over. When I say, drive over.
41:26
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about a mile or a mile and
41:28
Speaker 1: a half at the most. And uh went in the
41:32
Speaker 1: kitchen door, which was not locked. Uh, and walked in
41:35
Speaker 1: the house and called out their names and things like that.
41:38
Speaker 1: They asked to walk through the kitchen, and there was
41:40
Speaker 1: a door to the garage. That was one of the
41:43
Speaker 1: first things they did that from from the kitchen into
41:45
Speaker 1: the garage and opened it and saw both of their
41:48
Speaker 1: vehicles there. So they assumed they were there somewhere. And
41:51
Speaker 1: this is a two story home or or at least
41:56
Speaker 1: a story and a half or what do you want
41:57
Speaker 1: to call it out a full basement that was partially finished. Uh. Anyway,
42:02
Speaker 1: they walked through the whole house, calling out their names
42:05
Speaker 1: and and didn't didn't find them. Uh. And then eventually
42:12
Speaker 1: the man this was a couple of contemporary couple of
42:15
Speaker 1: theirs about the same age. The garage door, when you
42:19
Speaker 1: opened it, you could see the cars, but there was
42:23
Speaker 1: a step, when I say a step, at least three
42:25
Speaker 1: steps down from the kitchen level into the garage. And
42:28
Speaker 1: he stepped down there, and then when he got between
42:31
Speaker 1: the two cars, that's when he saw the body. And
42:35
Speaker 1: the body was bad enough, but when he walked over there,
42:38
Speaker 1: that's when he saw, let the head, Uh, the head
42:43
Speaker 1: had been removed from the body. And uh. Of course
42:46
Speaker 1: then they called, and you can imagine quite a quite
42:50
Speaker 1: a state because this there was some point a bit
42:53
Speaker 1: of a confusion. And the dispatchers told me that, you know,
42:58
Speaker 1: there were bodies all over the high house. You know,
43:01
Speaker 1: I don't know how I got construed that, but uh,
43:06
Speaker 1: obviously we responded that in a very quick fashion and
43:11
Speaker 1: uh uh and sure enough, when we got there, it
43:17
Speaker 1: was clear to me it was a post mortem decapitation.
43:21
Speaker 1: But nonetheless there was still a lot of but blood
43:23
Speaker 1: that it drained from the uh but I think the
43:28
Speaker 1: raxal cavity would be the proper term. Uh out all
43:34
Speaker 1: over the floor of the garage and uh uh. And
43:39
Speaker 1: of course at that juncture, hell, we didn't even know
43:42
Speaker 1: who these people, who these people were. The mysteries surrounding
43:48
Speaker 1: the brutal death of us, and surely demand remains open
43:56
Speaker 1: and Nancy grace, crimes to you, signing off goodbye to
44:02
Speaker 1: h