8:00

that's being built there, that is huge. And I

8:02

remember going out on a boat and seeing the

8:04

house being built. I mean, it was one of

8:06

these houses that's just like, you

8:08

know, he probably told the builder, I need everyone to know

8:11

how big this, this is the biggest house on the lake.

8:13

At one point there were, I think, five

8:15

different head coaches from the SEC, football head

8:17

coaches who had homes on Lake Oconee. There

8:20

are multiple NFL players who have vacation homes

8:22

on Lake Oconee. All

8:24

of them have docks, because

8:27

a dock, obviously if you're gonna live on a lake, you

8:29

need to have a dock, that's the whole point you live

8:32

on a lake, for living on the lake. And the Derman

8:34

House is in sort of a cove, right? But

8:36

this lake is huge. And

8:38

so assuming that the killers came

8:41

from the water, they could

8:43

have come from any direction. And

8:45

they could have come from a county over,

8:47

right? Like you can put in six,

8:50

seven, eight miles away, be in a different county,

8:53

know where you're going, go into the Derman

8:56

House, commit the crime, then leave, and then

8:58

go back and get to wherever

9:00

you need to get to, further, further

9:02

away. So it's

9:04

not necessarily as linear

9:06

as if a car came up through

9:09

the driveway, pulls in, does what they do, and

9:11

then leave. There's something

9:13

extra spooky about a premeditated

9:15

crime. And I think we

9:18

could be pretty confident in saying that this

9:20

was a premeditated murder where

9:22

the perpetrators come in via

9:25

the water, like a boat invasion,

9:27

right? That's very unusual.

9:29

It just, it seems very economical. It's almost

9:31

like a movie, right? Well, there's not more

9:34

work, right? You gotta have

9:36

a boat, you gotta know how to operate a boat, you gotta

9:38

get there, you gotta get away. The

9:40

other thing is boats are noisy, right?

9:43

If you're gonna get away, you gotta

9:45

fire up the engine of that boat. And it's not like

9:47

a car where you can just slide out under the cover

9:49

of night. Like I feel like a boat, like they make

9:51

noise. People are gonna hear you, I would think. Do you

9:53

think this happened at night? I think so.

9:56

If it happened via water, which is what

9:58

seems to be the prevailing. I think

10:01

nighttime would have made the most sense. There's all sorts

10:04

of mysteries and all sorts of weirdness about this crime.

10:06

Like that's the prevailing theme of

10:09

this entire story in some ways. And

10:12

you and us, you know, we got some great

10:14

sound and we heard from a lot of the

10:16

people involved. And as usual,

10:18

we weren't able to get to all of it. So, and

10:20

this is a really good time to listen to some of

10:22

that and hear what else some of our characters had to

10:24

say. I love fall. It's

10:27

the best, the weather's amazing. The

10:30

sun is out, it's not hot. People are out

10:32

about on their porches hanging out.

10:35

It's just the best. I love the leaves turning. I

10:38

love to sit in the kinda crisp air and have a

10:40

scotch and just kind of not be busy. I

10:43

love to sit in the morning. I love to sit

10:46

in the morning. I love to sit on the

10:48

porch. I love to sit in the morning. I

10:50

love to sit in the morning. It's like, I don't know

10:52

if you're a hot guy. I kind of not

10:55

be busy. Be busy by not being busy

10:57

if that makes sense. Correct. But

10:59

the larger point is that fall is,

11:01

because aside from lounging, there's always something

11:03

going on on the weekends in. There's

11:05

tons to do. All sorts of

11:07

festivals and whatever. Right, absolutely. You know what

11:09

I don't like to do when I'm busy?

11:11

Go to the grocery store. Go to the

11:13

grocery store, cook, do things for myself. And

11:15

this is where Factor comes in. Because when

11:17

it comes to meals, everybody

11:20

wants the same thing, right? Options.

11:23

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11:26

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11:33

tried the protein. That's what you had

11:35

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11:37

have to say, I've

11:39

tried some of these meal packages before.

11:42

I've tried them all, basically. This is

11:44

by far the best tasting meal I've

11:47

ever had of that variety. Well,

11:49

because there's always some element of like, it

11:51

always just feels like it was mass producing,

11:54

packed in a factory and sealed up and

11:56

sent off. Yeah, not here. That was not

11:58

the case here. Yeah, you can tell that

12:00

the chef's. that put these meals together, they

12:02

actually care. It's always fresh, it's never frozen,

12:04

and you can tell the care and thought

12:06

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12:09

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12:27

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12:29

right? And Factor allows us to do

12:31

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13:06

would you consider yourself a curious

13:08

person? Yes, I think so.

13:11

I would too. I love to learn new things.

13:13

I think you do too. It's one of the

13:15

reasons we do this show. It's not nearly as

13:17

sharp as it was when I was a kid

13:19

though. It's not nearly as sharp, but it's also,

13:21

we don't have the time we did when we

13:23

were kids to just explore. No. But

13:26

you know what? That feels like more of

13:29

an excuse than a reason. You can make

13:31

time for that. Yeah, people spend their entire

13:33

careers in academia making time to be curious.

13:35

Yeah, and kind of utilizing that sense of

13:37

wonder. And I think therapy

13:40

is a great way to reconnect

13:42

with that sense of wonder we're

13:44

talking about. It can help shake

13:46

off the cobwebs, right? And embrace

13:48

life a little more. Yes, learning

13:50

again, experiencing again, that back to

13:52

school era can really come

13:55

at any age. Yeah, you see a little more

13:57

clearly in getting that, getting into therapy,

13:59

it seems like. Bill,

16:01

worked for the Seth Thomas Clock

16:03

Company, which eventually was bought out

16:05

by two or three different things

16:08

and left them

16:10

and went into the fast food

16:12

business and owned a number

16:15

of Hardee's franchises around metro

16:17

Atlanta, whether we can find

16:20

no connection, whatever. This

16:23

decapitation had no

16:25

ritualistic symbolism or

16:27

anything like that either. So

16:30

there's no evidence to support that at all. Here's

16:32

one of the things that's always really stood out

16:34

to me about this crime scene is the

16:37

fact that it's never happened

16:40

again that we know of. You

16:43

and I have both gone really deep on

16:45

the Delphi murders in Indiana, the murders of

16:47

Abigail Williams in Liberty, Germany. That

16:50

crime scene, while different from what happened

16:52

with Russell and Shirley Derman, was also

16:55

characterized to us as very bizarre and

16:57

odd and weird and mysterious. The more

16:59

we learned about that crime scene, the

17:01

more that that is indeed the case.

17:05

Everyone we talked to, we were talking about that

17:07

case, about Delphi, most people

17:09

expected a crime like that to

17:11

happen again because the signatures were

17:13

so unique. Here

17:16

the signatures are incredibly unique too.

17:18

Sheriff still said at one point, and this

17:21

was just in the not too recent past,

17:23

he was reading about a murder, I think

17:25

in California where somebody was decapitated. First

17:29

thing he did was gave the agency a call

17:31

that was handling that case. So

17:34

you're right, these don't happen very often. When

17:37

they do, that is oftentimes

17:39

one of the first calls that he will

17:41

make is to try to connect to the

17:43

possibility that this person has

17:45

done it again. The fact that this

17:47

is not something that happens very often

17:50

also sort of points to the possibility

17:52

that this may have been a targeted

17:54

murder. Obviously

17:57

why we don't know, that's the big question,

17:59

right? But you're right, this is a very

18:01

rare MO, this

18:03

is a very rare occurrence, which

18:06

leads, like I said, to

18:08

that personalization of the murder.

18:11

I've also heard the theory, we've all heard

18:13

it from our profilers and from others that

18:15

this could be one of those, let's

18:18

commit a crime to show them how

18:20

smart we are situations, right? And

18:22

as a one-off, and

18:25

obviously we have no evidence that says that's

18:28

what it was, it feels like it could be one

18:30

of those two, because on the surface,

18:32

you hear about these details, it sounds like

18:34

a grisly serial killer type scene, but serial

18:37

being serial, there's no serial here. But

18:40

as we've learned, the scene tells as much

18:42

of the story as possible, the scene does

18:45

tell us a lot of things. And

18:47

the conversation that we had with Sheriff

18:49

Sills and Andy Smith from the FBI,

18:52

they seem to tell a lot of things to them

18:54

too. Perhaps that this wasn't a

18:56

criminal mastermind at work. So I

18:58

guess what you're kind of implying is that the

19:01

crime scene had some elements of an inefficiency

19:03

to it. Yes, or

19:05

certainly a lack of professionalism, I'd say

19:08

that. I'd agree with that. And there

19:10

were some things that, obviously

19:12

someone was not prepared to deal with, how

19:15

about that? In either the cleanup or the

19:17

after the incident. And some

19:20

of the things that happened and caused a

19:22

lack of evidence, it could have been blind

19:25

luck that things ended up the way it

19:27

did. That's what I

19:29

mean by it's a very strange, bizarre case.

19:32

Let me ask you something. And

19:34

this piece of sound kind

19:36

of points to that too, which is, do you think that

19:39

when the killers approached that house, decapitating

19:43

Russell Dermott was part of the

19:45

plan? I feel

19:48

like decapitating someone was part of the

19:50

plan because again, whatever

19:52

was used to remove his head

19:54

was not found. And there

19:57

was nothing apparent missing from the scene.

19:59

And everyone... seems to think that whatever

20:01

the tool, that tool that was used

20:03

was brought with them. So it seems

20:06

to me the answer is yes. What do you think? I

20:09

agree. And this level

20:11

of overkill to me, and

20:14

I think one of the profilers we talked to

20:16

referenced this, but there's an element of rage here

20:19

that doesn't exist in normal, quote,

20:22

normal homicides. And

20:25

here's the problem with rage though. Rage kind of

20:27

connotes to me, like there's some

20:29

spur of the moment stuff going on. Like

20:32

for as premeditated as this seems to have

20:34

been, to bring that bladed weapon, to bring

20:36

those rocks, to bring those bags for the

20:38

cinder blocks, I should say, to

20:41

weigh Shirley down, that's a long time

20:43

to hang on to rage before an

20:45

act, you know? Well, I'm

20:47

no psychologist, but what

20:50

you're talking about sort of is like rage in

20:52

terms of snapping. Right. But

20:55

also think about rage in terms of building, where it

20:57

escalates over the course of a period of time. I

20:59

see what you mean. And it builds up to that

21:01

point, right? We

21:03

can talk about the why to we're blue in the face,

21:06

and I don't know if we're ever gonna get that

21:08

unless they've figured out who did this. But

21:11

the important thing to remember too is that there

21:13

are people connected to

21:15

this family and this community that

21:18

lived through this. I mean, this

21:20

is the kind of thing that sticks with you, right? And

21:22

we talked to Pastor David Key, who was

21:25

Shirley and Russell's pastor. And

21:27

he gave some great insight into this. And

21:31

we didn't get a chance to use a ton of what

21:33

he said, but we wanted to play

21:35

this because this piece kind of encapsulates all of that.

21:37

So here's what he had to say. I don't feel

21:39

like I can accurately

21:41

answer why this

21:43

occurred. You know, what was it that

21:46

motivated the persons or person

21:49

to do what they did? I don't

21:51

know that. That's one of the real difficulties of

21:54

this unsolved mystery, unsolved murder.

21:57

And so until then, you know, I can't doubt

22:00

it. I think did 100% accurately. But

22:03

I do feel fairly confident of saying that what

22:05

evil dynamics are around it. What those

22:07

were, I don't fully know, but again,

22:10

the gruesomeness of it really

22:12

did say that something occurred

22:15

either in the life of the murderer,

22:17

murderers, or in

22:20

the circumstances around it. There was something

22:22

that was motivating it. And

22:25

I don't know if it was a

22:27

darkness from childhood or darkness from the

22:29

circumstances of the day it happened. But

22:31

something was there. And again,

22:34

I hope someday, I don't know what

22:36

that is. That thought kind

22:38

of goes to what you're talking about, sort

22:40

of a building rage. And he's

22:42

a pastor. This is a man who understands how

22:46

the mind works in many ways, right? And how humans work. Yeah,

22:49

this is a guy that kind of understands human

22:52

emotions and kind of like how these things work

22:54

from a spiritual perspective.

22:57

Yeah, they deal with a lot of heavy

22:59

emotions. They deal with the

23:01

highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

23:04

And one of the people who experienced the

23:06

lowest of those lows was

23:08

Brad Dermott, one of Russell and Shirley's

23:11

children. He's obviously done a lot of

23:13

thinking about all this. This

23:15

mystery, this unsolved thing has

23:18

been sitting with him since it

23:20

happened. There's been no closure. There's been only mystery.

23:23

There's only been more questions. There's only been speculating.

23:25

There's been this open

23:27

wound, but he does

23:29

think a lot about it and what

23:32

may have happened and what it means. It

23:35

certainly didn't seem like it was a robbery of

23:37

any kind. I mean, there was a lot of

23:40

items that had a lot of value

23:42

that were untouched, whether Rolex washes, cash,

23:44

laptops, like

23:47

electronics, that kind of stuff. So I

23:49

know sheriffs also thought that possibly mistaken

23:52

identity, that's always one. That's

23:54

always an option. Gannon related,

23:57

did somebody think that they

23:59

had knowledge? of something that

24:02

was extremely valuable, the circumstances,

24:05

it certainly looks like there was more than one

24:07

person involved, which our hope

24:09

ultimately that will help solve the case

24:12

because the more people involved, it's greater

24:14

chances are that somebody don't, somebody say

24:16

something to somebody. Let

24:19

me ask you this. Mm-hmm. If there

24:21

is more than one person involved, which seems to be the

24:24

opinion, and I tend to

24:27

agree with that. Yeah, me too. Multiple

24:29

people, like Brad says, means that it

24:31

is harder to keep it a secret.

24:35

Do you think that there's someone who is involved

24:37

in this who is

24:39

approaching a point where he might

24:41

say something? Okay, so I

24:44

hate to keep bringing up Delphi, but

24:46

there's long been suspicion that

24:48

there are multiple people involved in that

24:51

crime too. They've said

24:53

as much in open court, the authorities have. And

24:56

many people ask the same question that you

24:58

just asked. When is someone gonna

25:01

break? When is someone going to feel this

25:03

load to be too heavy? But here is

25:05

the thing. Like when you have a two-person

25:07

crime like this, to drop a

25:09

hint about someone else or to come

25:12

and confess, it's mutually assured

25:14

destruction, right? Like you are implicating yourself

25:16

in a murder to turn someone else

25:18

in. So you

25:20

have to be ready to go to prison

25:23

for the rest of your life, or depending on the

25:25

state, perhaps be put to death for it, for these

25:27

kinds of crimes, right? And there's

25:30

also natural omerta in place

25:32

over multiple-person crimes, especially

25:34

with murder. Even

25:36

if one person did the killing,

25:39

the other person was just assisting or standing

25:41

by. They're as culpable for that murder as

25:43

the person who actually ended the lives. So

25:45

it's not like that person is getting any

25:47

better treatment by coming forward. Well, but what

25:49

if they go into Sills' office and say,

25:52

I can tell you everything you need to

25:54

know about this case, but I'm going

25:56

to need a proffer. I'm going to need a deal. Yeah, Queen

25:58

for a day is tough. who

32:00

kind of is running the show. And

32:02

imagine for a moment if the alpha is

32:04

the one who did the killing or most

32:06

of the killing and did the decapitation, it

32:09

would behoove you as their accomplice to

32:13

keep your mouth shut because

32:15

they could very easily turn on you.

32:18

Yeah, in those relationships, the

32:21

second banana is often scared of

32:24

the first banana. Yeah, and

32:26

that may be incentive here

32:28

to not say anything. So

32:31

we're gonna move to- Also

32:33

YouTube. Also YouTube. This is from Anne

32:35

Wanken 6288 and she says, I

32:38

can hear the frustration in the sheriff's voice regarding

32:40

lack of heart evidence. If that were me,

32:42

I would be constantly thinking of where else

32:45

to look. Argh, you forgot

32:47

the argh. I'm not doing the argh. Argh,

32:49

she expresses frustration in the form of argh.

32:51

Yeah, we hear ya. Yeah, and

32:53

look, he said in the show, I

32:56

think about this case all the

32:58

time. And the

33:00

boxes, as we said, of this case are literally sitting

33:02

on the floor of his office. They are not packed

33:04

away in an evidence room. He

33:07

can pull out the files at any moment. And

33:10

as we said before, he's open to

33:12

hearing anybody's thoughts about this case. So yeah, I

33:15

think he's constantly trying to figure out, what have

33:17

I missed? What have I overlooked? What am I

33:19

not thinking about? And again,

33:22

harken back to Delphi, we've talked to

33:24

law enforcement in that case. And I mean, this is

33:26

a law enforcement thing in general, what

33:29

am I not thinking of? Yeah, go back to

33:31

the beginning. What am I missing? It's impossible to

33:33

try to figure out what you're not thinking of.

33:35

Because if you're not thinking of it, you would

33:37

have thought it already. Yeah, exactly.

33:39

That's why this job of being

33:42

an investigator, it's

33:44

almost like a constant referendum

33:46

on your own skills. Because you're like, what

33:48

did I not think about? What did I

33:51

completely overlook? Every

33:53

case is an opportunity to just constantly

33:56

question whether you're going down the right

33:58

path. Our

34:00

next comment comes from YouTube as well from

34:03

EC6769. Awesome

34:06

information on the DNA and fingerprints.

34:08

This case deserves to be solved.

34:11

I hope they find answers. Great

34:13

job, Deviant. Thank you

34:15

very much. We agree. We want this

34:17

to be solved. Hopefully the DNA and

34:20

fingerprints can really

34:22

lead to some useful information. And on the

34:24

great job, Deviant, I thank you very much.

34:26

But I also want to give a special

34:28

shout out to my partner Andrew here, who

34:31

has been following this story for a very long time

34:33

since it started a decade ago. And

34:36

this is not the first time he's been in the

34:38

field out there, and I wish I were able to

34:40

be there with you. But I'm here in Chicago eating

34:42

hot dogs. And while you're

34:44

out in the field doing work, and I just want to

34:47

tip my cap to you and said you did an amazing

34:49

job. Thank you very much. Richard, I

34:51

was very self-serving in our own show, but I

34:53

just want to publicly acknowledge that you did it.

34:56

I was really, you know. Well,

34:58

thanks. You're awesome, man. Team effort. And Clark,

35:01

our EP, was also with us, obviously, as well.

35:03

And he and I spent the day, day and

35:06

a half over there in Etonton. And Sheriff

35:08

Sills has been a great partner in being

35:10

able to tell this story because he's so

35:12

open and honest and candid about things. And

35:14

so that obviously makes it a

35:17

lot more of an enriching story.

35:20

Yeah, Clark's all right. So

35:23

this next comment is from Deborah McCorkle on

35:25

Instagram. And she says, this is where I

35:27

live. We live in a quiet town. Literally

35:29

nothing like this happens. It's

35:31

a rare occurrence that we even have a murder,

35:33

and the Reynolds community is even more quiet. Nearly

35:36

nothing heard of from that side. When

35:39

this happened, the entire county and surrounding

35:41

areas were in complete shock. It's

35:43

like the world stood still. And

35:45

even so, years later, we all still sit

35:48

and wonder at what and how. Thank

35:50

you for sharing this story. As

35:52

sad and tragic as the story is, it

35:55

needs to make its way around outside of

35:57

the state. I can't really add anything

35:59

else to that. that I think she's right. I

36:01

do think, again, this is also cliche,

36:04

but somebody knows something somewhere and

36:06

it's just a matter of it getting into the right

36:08

years. Yeah, and thanks for writing in, Deborah.

36:11

We appreciate the kind words. Also

36:13

from Instagram, catsclaus, catsclaus,

36:17

catsclaus writes, I think

36:19

they knew them, the Dermans, knew

36:21

the area really well, a huntsman, to

36:23

be able to navigate the lake quietly,

36:25

but also the clean way his head

36:28

was obtained. Someone who has

36:30

skill and speed, no forced entry, they

36:32

definitely knew the killer were killers.

36:36

And how was their hearing? It could be

36:38

one killer if, say, the wife had hearing

36:40

issues at her age, hearing aids, then she

36:42

wouldn't know what was happening in the garage

36:44

if she was sleeping. Maybe the killer asked

36:46

to borrow something to go hunting in the

36:48

early AM, which is why he was in

36:50

the garage. All

36:53

that's possible. I hadn't considered

36:55

the possibility of, surely,

36:58

having hearing difficulties and being,

37:01

like, whatever had occurred, started

37:04

before she was aware of something

37:07

having started. If

37:09

it happened at the middle of the night, she

37:11

could have been asleep, right? Right, right. So I

37:13

hadn't really considered that, but yeah, again, possible. From

37:17

Instagram, two-wheeled church says, mobhit took

37:19

the head back for proof. I

37:22

think that if Sheriff Sills is to

37:24

be believed, that's pretty much been ruled

37:26

out, as he said before, there's no

37:28

ritualistic signs. There was no, they went

37:30

through with a fine-tooth comb. They went

37:33

over the paperwork and the business records

37:35

and all the associates that Russell

37:37

Derman had over the years as a fast

37:39

food franchise owner and a businessman. And

37:42

there is seemingly nobody that

37:46

would indicate any sort of organized

37:49

crime, syndicate connection of

37:51

any kind. Same deal, I

37:53

believe, with their close

37:56

friends and family. There's no known

37:58

ties to organized crime. That

38:01

could be found whatsoever. Right, right. So

38:03

thank you so much for writing in with your

38:05

comments and your thoughts. We'd love that you

38:07

did. We appreciate that you took the time.

38:10

And that is a wrap for

38:13

our exploration of the Lake Oconee

38:15

murders. If something new happens,

38:18

if we get some news about that DNA or if there's some break

38:20

in the case, we'll be sure to revisit

38:22

this. We're hoping to get a call from Sheriff

38:24

Sills, if that does happen. He promised me he

38:26

would call if there is new developments. So we

38:29

shall see. So he'll call us. We'll call

38:31

you. Next time

38:34

on Deviant, it's

38:36

Halloween. So we're going to take a

38:38

little step away from telling a real

38:40

story. And we're going to tell you

38:42

fake stories. It's our Deviant Halloween special.

38:44

And we're going to get spooky. We're

38:47

going to be telling you ghost stories. So

38:49

take that flashlight, put it under your

38:51

chin. Look

38:54

blankly at me like Andrew. Yes. No,

38:58

it'll be fun. It'll be fun. Yeah,

39:01

next week, let's have some fun. Until

39:03

then, thanks for listening. Deviant is written,

39:05

produced, and executive produced by Clark Gold

39:08

Band, Andrew Iden, and me Dan Sematovich.

39:11

Production and editorial consultation

39:13

comes from Jenny Amant

39:15

with original scoring by

39:17

Shuvosir. The

39:19

insanely talented Shuvosir, who I am a

39:22

musician myself. And I am constantly and

39:24

insanely jealous of what he is able

39:26

to do and what I am not.

39:29

Sales, marketing, and distribution support comes

39:31

from our partners at Gemini 13.

39:34

Deviant is a production of

39:37

Cold Open Media.