Sheriff Grady provides triple murder update | Press Conference

good morning ladies and gentlemen thank you very much for being with us today i ask that you come here so that we can give you an update i'm going to first and foremost tell you that we have simply the best homicide team i believe in the entire nation in 11 years we only have two unsolved homicides and quite frankly if some friends of those victims would talk to us we would have zero unsolved homicides but apparently their friends had rather their these folks be dead then help us find out who the murderers are but that's a side story i knew when we sent this investigative team there that they would do everything they could and would more than likely solve this homicide because they were simply the very best and they did on this case what they do on every other case they investigated this homicide as if our victims damien tillman kevin springfield and brandon rollins were their brothers that's the energy and enthusiasm they worked 24 7 around the clock along with the all of uh their colleagues and they have solved the case we have locked up the three people that are responsible for the murders of these guys let me once again lay out the details for you if you missed it originally i want you to think about this this is polk county frost proof the very south end of the county it's an extremely rural area the county's two thousand square miles population is almost 700 000 and all of it is from mid polk county north so it's sparsely populated area that's made up of cow pastures orange groves beautiful lakes and a very very low crime rate in the frost proof area which is one of the best kept secrets and one of the safest places to live any place in the nation but all of that came to a crashing halt on lake street road when we found these people our victims massacred literally massacred we thought my goodness what could have happened there well we know now i'm going to introduce you to the people that were responsible for that then i'm going to give you a timeline so this is going to take a couple of minutes and you pick from it what you need here are this is the trigger man this is the guy who directly did the damage his name's tony wiggins he's known as tj he's 26 years of age this is mary whitmore she's 27 years of age and she is the girlfriend of tony wiggins and this is robert wiggins he's 21 years of age and he's the brother obviously to tj but let me stop for a minute and give you a little history on tj tj is someone who his criminal history should shock your conscience it does mine t.j started to be arrested when he was 12 years old he is currently only 26 years old tj has 230 felony criminal charges in his arrest history i didn't stutter he had 230 charges in his arrest history 15 convictions and two times to state prison at only 26. there's a picture of tony wiggins here's the real tony wiggins he's a thug he's a criminal he's pure evil in the flesh he's wild and he's out of control mary has zero criminal history zero robert has one misdemeanor arrest virtually no arrest tony 230 felony charges they all are from the lake wells and frost proof area as was our victim when we started receiving crime stopper tips and we received them to the point that the call center said we had to bring in extra help we had people call in from all over the nation about ideas and helping us investigate the crime and what they believed and psychics but the local tips that came in that were filtered and there were hundreds that came to us the predominant information we got was look at t.j wiggins from frost proof it's not that they had any idea that he did it but this guy is just mean he's just violent he's currently out on bond for breaking a guy's arm with a crowbar during a fight waiting to go back to trial on other felony charges this is a guy who they said will just walk up and punch you for no reason or no reason to you certainly a good reason to him you look at the florida statutes as it appears with criminal conduct he's got some arrest history everything from burglary and theft to aggravated battery to resisting law enforcement officers to battery on law enforcement officers to battery on people that are 65 years or older the elderly he's just wild and hostile and the people of frost proof said look at him but let me tell you as i introduce you to these folks and i start through the timeline what occurred when our crime scene folks and our detectives were working the original crime scene what we noticed in the truck in damien's truck and understand when i talked today damien was in the red pickup truck and the white pickup truck had our other two victims in their kevin springfield and brandon rollins kevin was driving the white pickup truck brandon was riding in the white pickup truck and damien was driving his red pickup truck the three of them decided to go to the lake to fish what's more wholesome then three friends three close friends fishing together in frost proof on a friday night and that's what they were doing but first damien stopped at the dollar general store and we figured that out because we saw a dollar general bag in the victim damien's truck and there were things that he'd purchased there so we went to dollar general and i want to tell you when you look at a professional business that was totally cooperative with us it's dollar general dollar general always works well with us because you know they want good customers and they don't care for criminals stealing their stuff or certainly committing murders what we saw when we pulled the videotape was damien standing in line to check out the person behind him in line to check out is newsflash tj the person behind tj is robert and we also determined that mary was in the store so let's go to a timeline at 21 56 hours we call that 9 56 in the evening damien is checking out of the store with his product he is followed out of the store by tj who checks out about 15 seconds later and he's also followed by his brother and his girlfriend at 1006 pm only 10 minutes later brandon who is now in the white pickup truck frantically calls his dad and says help and i've already talked to you how dad ran to the scene only to find the massacre at the scene what we know is that damien drove directly to the lake from dollar general to meet his friends kevin and brandon what we know is that as a result of that the murder occurred in short order in less than 10 minutes so we have all three of the suspects in the store with damien and checking out 10 minutes before the frantic call for help so our detectives now confirm that hey this guy tony or tj that we've received tips from is standing in line with and had a conversation with damien in the store we don't have the conversation because there's no audio but from body language it was not violent or animated it was just a normal conversation but our detectives on monday found our suspects and they were living on sarver avenue in a family compound of camper trailers and this is in the woods outside of frost proof and they were living off the grid no running water no electricity they had some generators so understand that now we're talking about frost proof in a rural part of the county the shooting happened in a rural part of the county and we literally have to walk the road and we go down a dirt path through the woods that opens up into a compound off the grid that's how far out in the woods this is so our detectives immediately interviewed tony wiggins and robert and mary whitmore robert and mary consistently lie to protect tj robert lies to us mary lies to us tj lies to us they don't tell us the truth the only common thread during their interviews otherwise the stories are all over the place from different vehicles to where they went to they didn't go any place but they agreed on one thing they went to mcdonald's and ordered 10 double cheeseburgers and two chicken sandwiches that's the only thing so on monday we executed a search warrant at the compound tj was found to be in possession of two shotguns and two sks 7.62 rifles he's a convicted felon he can't possess firearms so he was immediately arrested our forensic investigations team found one nine millimeter shell casing one at tj's trailer the florida department of law enforcement said from the very beginning i had two conversations with the commissioner this weekend he's a dear friend of mine he said grady fdle is here to do anything you need and i told you about them chipping in ten thousand dollars to help he says our labs at your disposal i called him monday afternoon i said we need to compare some shell casings from the scene to a shell casing at our prime suspect's house we plan to bring it over in the morning he said no bring it over tonight and let's get started they brought in people that's that's the help that's the teamwork what did we determine the shell casing at the scene the shell casing at tj's house were all fired from a smith and wesson handgun and both the shell casing at home and at the scene were fired from the same weapon the weapon that committed the massacre in the hands of tj so on tuesday when we got the paperwork wrapped up with all of that investigation we went back to the scene and we asked robert and mary if they would join us at the sheriff's office for a clarifying interview and they agreed to come up to the sheriff's office to talk to us tony had lawyered up mary made some admissions she said i bought the ammunition tj was with me news flash we got video of that too that ammunition was purchased on the 9th of july she also gave us once again multiple stories about being with and confirming she was in the dollar general that night we've got evidence to show they were together less than 10 minutes before the murder and then when we pressed her for the details and she realized oh my gosh they've got me she lawyered up she didn't cooperate anymore robert the younger brother we talked to him robert up to this moment or up to this event is not a bad guy at least in the criminal sense one misdemeanor arrest when robert's in line he hears damien tell the clerk we're going fishing damien tells the clerk because the clerk knows everybody it's a small town yeah i'm going fishing with kevin so robert and tj are talking and he says yeah uh damian's going fishing with kevin and tj says what kevin's going to be there so when they leave the store tj tells robert who's driving go to the lake now they had no plans to go to the lake until t.j told robert go to the lake and they did damien now is at the lake and he has met up with during this time frame kevin and brandon who are in the white truck and they have turned their trucks so that they're door-to-door talking to each other in the middle of the road robert drives and pulls up behind the white truck that's driven by kevin with brandon in the passenger side tj exited his truck when he did brandon got out of his vehicle and shined a light back to see who was pulling up behind them tj rushed up to brandon pushed him against the truck pulled the handgun out and said where's kevin well kevin's sitting in the driver's seat right there and he looks and sees kevin he runs around he being tj runs around between the red truck and the white truck he points the gun at kevin and tj says where's my truck kevin goes i don't know what you're talking about yeah you do where's my truck you sold the engine out of my truck okay kevin said i don't know what you're talking about at that moment in time according to the information we've received tj hits kevin damien starts to open the door of his vehicle and is screaming at tj put the gun away put the gun away put the gun away tj's out of control screaming where's my truck and he starts shooting kevin and brandon inside of the white truck it's estimated and this is still under investigation he shoots him nine to 10 times between the two of them then he turns on damien and begins to shoot damien who's got his door open but is in his truck several times then he goes back to kevin's truck and during his excitement now he has dropped the magazine to his firearm and he can't find it so he opens the truck door and kevin falls out on the ground and that's where kevin's found he finds the magazine to the handgun that he drops when he goes back points the gun back and then he calls robert robert says he's sitting in the truck he said i never got out of the truck and when he pulled the gun i started to get out of the truck by that time it was all over with you can believe what of that you want to mary tj's girlfriend she doesn't know anything and this is one man mean woman she's not cooperating she's not talking she becomes incensed at the detectives when they try to confirm the spelling of her last name because it's not spelled in the traditional way you would think you would smell spell whitmore she's saying nothing but she's there the entire time and she's lying to protect him tj then tells robert come here help me put damien in the truck so damien now and we don't know the lineage the details because they're not given to us any better than what i'm about to tell you they grab damien we don't know if that he's already pulled out of the truck or if he's in the truck because there is there's blood evidence all over the place but they pick him up and heave him over into the back of the pickup truck with his foot sticking up over the edge of the bed and then they leave they go to a undisclosed location and supposedly strip down the gun take it apart and throw it away they immediately go to mcdonald's in lake wales and order ten double cheeseburgers and two mcchickens while they're standing in line or in line they go through the drive-through it's very quiet t.j simply says we weren't there and that's all the conversation that they will admit to we believe there's more than that we found throughout the investigation that they lied for tj that she bought ammunition for tj and then later on saturday keep in mind this happened on friday night robert takes that truck which belongs to another relative to a car wash because it's coated in red mud and cleans it up the owner of the vehicle knows that they're driving the vehicle that young lady who is a relative doesn't know anything about anything she's just throwing a fit because you said you were going to sebring or avon park in my truck and you bring it back looking like this robert cleans it up we asked did you clean the inside oh no we didn't clean the inside would duh they did we've tried we found trace evidence of blood where tj was sitting in the passenger side of the vehicle that's being packaged up and taken to fdle so the end of the day we've charged t.j wiggins appropriately with three counts of first-degree murder at this point in the investigation we have charged robert with three counts of accessory and one count of tampering with evidence we've charged mary with three counts of accessory to the murder and one count of tampering the investigation is ongoing the folks who lost their loved ones that night or are poor people we've had a lot of people offer we've had a lot of people offer to give us more money for a reward we don't need that but if there's an inclination to help these folks bury their loved ones i'm certain that would be appreciated because there's nothing worse than having to bury your child unless it's your having to bury your child and you don't have any money it's important to understand and i alluded to this the other day i can give you more details today that as i said originally normally the normal murder is around drugs alcohol money domestic events no evidence of drugs in either of the victim's car none zero no beer no beer cans no meth nothing in the suspect's vehicle when we see it there's no indication of drugs at all the only information we have is tj is allegedly mad over some kind of truck deal that happened some period of time ago we've not had a time an opportunity the homicide team to dig into that civil disturbance if you will yet because we're busy solving a triple homicide but that will come together later state attorney's office which is simply the very best worked with us hand and glove during the entire investigation and we'll be doing the same with them as we prepare to charge as we prepare to with them to prosecute t.j for the massacre of these three folks robert and mary's charges may be upgraded we may add charges that investigation is ongoing understand that this is wednesday we started this investigation friday night when we were called and by tuesday afternoon this homicide team had them in jail we're grateful for the tips we received we're grateful for the outpouring of support from the community we're grateful we had people from around the country as far away as tennessee that i'm aware of want to send us money for a reward you see that's the united states that's the state of florida and that's the community i know and love good people came with promises and prayers for the family from around this this country the community pulled together and that's the united states of america that i know now quite literally other than investigative details we're working on evidence we're preparing to take to the lab you know what we've been told up to this point in the investigation you can ask questions i'll either answer them or i won't yes ma'am beyond this you know the argument over the engine and the car was there other mode any other motor that you guys found the only conflict we see is this where's my truck i heard you stole the engine or sold the engine out of my truck where's my truck i heard you sold the engine out of my truck and for that this guy massacres three young men 23 27 and 30 on their way fishing friday night near frost proof it's gut wrenching this is evil in the flesh this is a guy who can hurt you just because it's the right thing for him to do at that moment in time with his three brain cells yes ma'am how do you know about this truck deal is one of these suspects cooperating or is this something that brandon rollins told us we're not telling all of how we put this together as you can imagine i'm giving you the thirty thousand foot view i'm so that so that you can have the complete picture of what happened but some of the information and some of the sources that people have wanted to provide us information you know it's it's not appropriate at this stage to release yes sir at what point in that timeline was brandon able to call his father was it after they left brandon called his father 10 minutes after they left the store that's so that means they left the store he met his buddies they're talking the suspects pull up whether brandon i imagine all information i have is he made the call when the argument started because by the time dad got there and found his son on the ground gasping his last breaths and he's holding his son he's with his son during the very end of his life and he's panicked as i told you he ran to the store and people good question why didn't he just pick up his son's cell phone and call well his son phone had fallen down inside the truck and in his panic in fear he didn't see any cell phones he just knew the three the three boys and his son was shot to pieces and he ran for help which is all he knew to do we've tried to comfort dad the wounds were so severe that quite literally if an emergency room had been across the street they couldn't have saved his life but you can't imagine the horror of a dad to find his son shot up i don't mean shot i mean shot up as we say in polk county vernacular multiple gunshots and dying in your arms yes ma'am got several tips pointing to uh tony wiggins um you specify about how many tips i don't i don't know how many of them specifically talked about tj or tony several and you know why not that they had any information about the murder but he's just mean as a snake so it and it's a small community frost proof is probably three thousand thirty five hundred people and this is in what you would call the outskirts it was not downtown frost proof frost proof is the mega center at three thousand this is probably three or four miles five miles south of frost proof in a very remote area but everybody knows that if tony wiggins is the prime suspect for anything that goes wrong and that's easy to assume when at 26 years of age he's got 230 felony charges and he's been arrested consistently from the time he was 12 years old i'm sure somebody thinks you ought to have counseling and pre-trial release our goal and we pray that the state attorney can seek the death penalty he needs to receive a fair trial the appropriate appeals and then be executed and you know what legally we can't execute him like he did those three guys who were just trying to fish on friday night nor would we suggest that the system be as barbaric as his conduct toward our three victims anything else pretty well know it thank you god bless you see you later

Channel: ABC Action News

Views: 1,021,444

Keywords: Florida, polk county, frostproof, grady judd, murder, triple murder, investigation

Id: l6y-YAgf1RA

Length: 36min 3sec (2163 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 22 2020