Man who plunged from tower was suspect in 3 slayings

Posted in Related Deaths

4-8-2012 Mississippi:

BAY ST. LOUIS -- Authorities suspect a twice-convicted felon killed his mother, stepfather and girlfriend at their home on Citizen Street before he climbed a cellphone tower in Waveland and plunged about 300 feet to his death.

The triple homicide and two other homicides Saturday in Hancock County marked what is believed to be a record of five homicides reported in a single day in the coastal counties.

“It was like a double full moon,” said Waveland Police Chief Kenny Hurt, previously chief investigator of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.

“All of us officials and investigators have been talking about how we don’t recall ever having this many at a time. We had a double homicide several years ago, but never anything like this,” Hurt said.

No motives have been revealed in any of the killings.

Authorities on Sunday identified victims in the slayings on Citizen Street as Wilton Bernard Jr., 69, his wife, Jeanie Bernard, 66, and Kathleen Deese, 50.

Deese was the suspect’s girlfriend, said Bay Deputy Police Chief Christine Johnson.

The suspect, Anthony Garrett, 46, died later Saturday night as authorities tried to talk him down from a tower and a crowd gathered to watch. Investigators are considering the possibility that he slipped and fell while trying to get down.

Witnesses reported Garrett shouted at onlookers and law enforcement officers, claiming he had killed his family with a hammer, and said he had been in prison a number of years.

Garrett was convicted of sexual battery in 1985 and again in 1988. He had given officials his mother’s home address as his address for the Mississippi Sex Offender Registry. The website said his picture was last updated March 27.

Back-to-back autopsies were performed Sunday, but authorities have not yet said how the three on Citizen Street were killed.

The Bernards were retired and mostly kept to themselves, said their next-door neighbor, who asked not to be identified. She said the couple had lived there about 10 years and had recently finished planting flowers in their yard.

Crime-scene tape was still tied around the yard Sunday afternoon. An American flag waved in the breeze from a short pole on a tripod-style planter of flowers in front of the light-colored stucco home, where sego palms grow underneath a set of double windows in front.

Three vehicles were parked on the property. A pickup truck and station wagon were in the front yard, and a car was parked under a lean-to built adjacent to a shed.

Public records show Garrett and Deese had previously lived in Meridian.

They apparently all lived together in a house at the corner of Citizen Street and Old Spanish Trail. Citizen Street is a dead-end road. Numerous motorists passed by and slowed down to look at the house Sunday and turned around and left.

Police said the three were found dead at 7:42 p.m. Saturday.

The neighbor said she had no idea anything had happened until a string of patrol cars drove up as she sat on her porch. She said authorities were still there when she went to bed about 3 a.m. Sunday. The woman said she heard no gunshots or sounds of distress.

Authorities linked Garrett to the slayings after Waveland police and Hancock County deputies responded to a report of a man who had jumped a fence and climbed onto a cell phone tower at U.S. 90 and Kiln-Waveland Cutoff Road in Waveland.

The tower is a three- or four-mile drive from the home on Citizen Street.

The sight of a man near the top of the tower drew a crowd of several dozen from neighboring businesses including the Knock Knock Lounge.

The Hancock County Sheriff’s Office and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation are assisting in the probe of those incidents. ..Source.. by ROBIN FITZGERALD