Sheriff Grady Judd addresses triple homicide, one of the 'worst' murder scenes he's ever been to

all right good ladies and gentlemen i'm here on this saturday morning to tell you some very bad news this is lake streety road and it's about as far out in the middle of the woods as you can get it's a peaceful area there's a beautiful lake that three very close friends were coming fishing on last night all three of them are dead they're murdered worse than that they're massacred and we need the community's help identifying who killed these three young white men it's a friday night what could be more wholesome than meeting up with two of your best buddies to go catfishing and it's called night fishing in this part of the world these three men all lived in frost proof let me tell you who they are brandon rollins kevin springfield and damon tillman now they're victims and according to marsy's law you're not supposed to release their names however we got permission of the family to release their names because we want the community to know who they are and to know that they were viciously murdered and to know that we need their help here's what occurred they were to show up here in two separate vehicles so damon tillman in his red pickup truck apparently arrived here first what i give you is certainly conjecture and all subject to change this is just what we see from the crime scene and most of that we're going to protect but it appears that damon showed up first and he was murdered and it appears that while the suspects and we certainly believe there's more than one were in the process of murder murder and damon that brandon and kevin showed up in a white pickup truck and they were shot up and ultimately murdered but here's what the murderers didn't count on that one of our victims brandon rollins was able to call his father and say help his father who was home in bed asleep heard the call from his son knew where they were fishing jumped up got dressed drove here immediately he's about 10 minutes away in the frost proof community when he arrived he saw this horrific scene of where all these young men had been shot up in brandon's father's excitement to run to and help his son he forgot his cell phone at home so now he's out in the middle as you can see of no place without any communications so we hopped back in his vehicle and went to sun ray which is on highway 27 ran into the convenience store they all know each other in this area so my son needs help 17 year old young lady who's the daughter of the convenience store attendant at that time jumps in the vehicle with brandon's father and they come back to the scene what the murderers also didn't count on is brandon had the opportunity to talk to his dad before he died so ems fire and sheriff's office are notified and ultimately by the time ems and fire arrived that brandon had succumbed to his injuries as well we're holding most of the information very close to the chest but it's important for you to know and for the community to be as outraged as we are these folks appear to be beaten and shot did you hear me beaten and shot we are seeking leads we need help so that we can solve this crime sooner rather than later because there are one or more and we suspect more than one murderer that killed three people in a little country community a very safe very quiet quaint very quiet community murdered them while they were on their way to go catfishing last night at about 10 o'clock in the evening so please call us we usually wait a few days before we put out the first reward offer but we're offering today five thousand dollars five thousand dollars you don't have to get involved in don't have to testify in court all you have to do is call crime stoppers 1-800-226-tips and say i have some information and if your information leads to the arrest simply the arrest you get five thousand dollars cash money but the victims their parents and their families deserve for us to solve this sooner rather than later this is a horrific scene i've been to a lot of murder scenes in my life and this ranks among the worst i've been to you can ask questions i'm probably not going to tell you any more than i have but give it your best shot if you are curious i do brandon rollins is 27. damien tillman is 23 and kevin springfield is 30. i'm told that they have been best buddies for years that they do a lot of social interaction together and they're all really good friends and have been out here he was still alive brandon had the opportunity to speak with his father just before he passed away and i'm sorry did he give his father any information about who may have been responsible for this the information that brandon told his father we're not releasing at this time do you believe that the people responsible have no idea at this point in the investigation that's total speculation as to whether or not they knew them or not but our intuitiveness tells us you don't just stumble upon somebody out here this is a a dirt road a clay dirt road way out in the middle of what we call god's country on the way to a nice little fishing lake it's not like there's a lot of people around here as you can see it's cow pastures and lakes all right we appreciate you helping us get this information out we're gonna find who did this and we're going to put them in jail and hold them accountable but you can make this happen sooner rather than later and after all think about it this is someone's sons brothers and we deserve to find these people and lock them up before they decide to kill someone else and at this point in time what do they have to lose they've already killed three thank you very much

Channel: WFLA News Channel 8

Views: 488,023

Keywords: wflatampa, wflanews, wflatampanews, local, news, crime

Id: ALx4d7KApIM

Length: 8min 50sec (530 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020