Wife of decapitated Georgia man was killed & dumped in lake

An 87-year-old Georgia Woman, was found dead in Lake Oconee 10 days after the discovery of her husband’s headless body last week.

Shirley Dermond did not drown, but rather died from a “blunt impact injury to the head,” Putnam County Gary McElhenney said Saturday. The Cornoner’s finding came a day after authorities pulled Dermond’s body from the lake about 80 miles east of Atlanta.

The decapitated body of her husband, 88-year-old Russell Dermond, was discovered May 6 in the garage of the couple’s million-dollar waterfront home after friends went to check on them. Authorities believe Shirley was taken from her home after her husband was killed, sometime between May 2 and  May 4.

Investigators continue to search for Russel Dermond’s head, and they plan to look in the area where Shirley Dermond’s body was found, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.

Authorities were alerted by two fishermen who spotted what they believed a body in the lake, five or six miles from the couple’s home.

“As we rode down the water, I noticed something just didn’t look right,” fisherman Dennis Higgs told The Eatonton Messenger. “Something was out of order. I saw [something] hung up on a tree – and I was 99 percent sure it was a body. . .”

Authorities believe the attackers gained access to the Dermond’s waterfront home via the lake, considering Shirley Dermond’s body was recovered five miles from the home.

Anyone with information on this case is asked to contact the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office at 706-485-8557