FBI posts reward for missing wife of beheaded man
It will pay "up to
$20,000 for information leading to the location of Shirley Wilcox
Dermond and/or the arrest of the individual(s) responsible for her
disappearance," Special Agent Stephen Emmett of the FBI's Atlanta office
said Wednesday.
Investigators are
treating Dermond's disappearance as an abduction, Putnam County Sheriff
Howard Sills has said. Investigators believe Russell Dermond of
Eatonton, Georgia, was killed between May 2 and May 4, and they're still
searching for his severed head, Sills told reporters last week.
With no breakthrough in the case,
authorities are reaching out to commuters. The FBI commissioned at
least 100 billboards throughout the state in its search for 87-year-old
Shirley Dermond and her husband's killer.
The digital billboards
say, "Missing and in danger," and include a photo of the gray-haired,
blue-eyed Dermond, along with her height, 5 feet 2 inches tall, and
weight, 148 pounds.
Anyone with information
is encouraged to call the FBI's Atlanta field office at 404-679-9000 or
the Putnam County Sheriff's Office at 706-485-8557.
"They're basically
running in all corners of the state," said the Outdoor Advertising
Association of Georgia's executive director, Conner Poe. "They'll run
once a minute, every minute, 24/7."
The billboards can be
seen as far south as Valdosta, as far east as Brunswick, and as far
north as Chattanooga, Tennessee, with 50 in metro Atlanta alone, Poe
said.
There is no indication
that Shirley Demond is a suspect, and there's "plenty" to indicate she
was taken, Sills said. Her pocketbook, cell phone and vehicle were all
at the million-dollar waterfront home.
"I don't think it's a
random incident. I think for whatever reason these people were singled
out for this," Sills said. "They live in the most exclusive
neighborhood, or one of the most exclusive neighborhoods, in this
county. ... They're on a cul-de-sac in a gated, multimillion-dollar
resort community that we have no crime in."
The Dermonds' friends
hadn't heard from them in days and went to their home in the lakeside
Great Waters community, where they found Russell Dermond's headless body
in the garage.
Authorities have
searched Lake Oconee in the vicinity of the Dermonds' home -- turning up
only a lawn chair and a Christmas tree -- and sent cadaver dogs into
the nearby woods, to no avail, Sills said.
Residents described
Reynolds Plantation -- a tony resort complex about 75 miles east of
Atlanta, which also boasts a Jack Nicklaus signature golf course and a
Ritz-Carlton Lodge -- as a safe enclave where people were comfortable
leaving their doors unlocked.
The 3,300-square-foot home where the Dermonds had lived since 1994 is valued at more than $1 million.
The Rev. David Key of
Lake Oconee Community Church last week said he has known the couple for
about eight years and counts them among his church's 350 attendees. He
said he's "baffled" as to why anyone would commit such crimes against
them.
He described the couple
of 68 years, who had three adult children, as grounded, "beloved in the
community" and "sweet as can be."
