Three best friends headed out to a secluded Florida lake for some night fishing Friday night and were brutally “massacred” on arrival, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Saturday morning.
Judd said the investigation has so far indicated that Damion Tillman, 23, arrived at Lake Streety first and was immediately waylaid. Keven Springfield, 30, and Brandon Rollins, 27, pulled up on the scene and were “shot up,” Judd said, standing on the clay dirt road that leads to the 324-acre lake just off US98 in central Florida.
“Here’s what the murderers didn’t count on,” Judd said. “One of our victims, Brandon Rollins, was able to call his father and say, ‘Help.’”
Rollins’s father knew where the three men were and headed immediately to the lake. It was just after 10 p.m. when he arrived. Tillman and Springfield were dead, and Rollins was barely alive. Rollins spoke briefly with his father, but Judd refused to reveal what he said.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd is on the scene of triple murder in Frostproof on Lake Streety Rd. There are three adult male victims who were fishing on Lake Streety last night (Friday, July 17, 2020) prior to being murdered. If anyone has information about this homicide they are urged to contact Heartland Crime Stoppers at 1-800-226-8477 or www.heartlandcrimestoppers.com. Anonymity is guaranteed! Click here to read the news release https://tinyurl.com/y66rh3nu
Posted by Polk County Sheriff's Office on Saturday, July 18, 2020
Rollins’s father had forgotten his cell phone in his rush to get to his son, so he raced back to the nearest convenience store to call 911. By the time he returned to the scene, his son, too was dead.
“This is a horrific scene,” Judd said. “I have been to a lot of murder scenes in my life and this ranks up with the worst of them. They were viciously murdered.”
The sheriff said it appeared that the victims were both beaten and shot. Judd said he couldn’t say if the killings were random or targeted, but he added that “our intuitiveness tells us you don’t just stumble upon somebody out here.”
“It’s about as far out in the middle of the woods as you can get,” Judd said. “It’s a peaceful area. There’s a beautiful lake where three very close friends were going fishing last night.”
“They’re all dead. They were murdered. Worse than that, they were massacred.”
Crimestoppers has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
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[Featured image: Damion Tillman, Brandon Rollins, and Keven Springfield/Facebook]
