Authorities in Eatonton, Georgia said that they are searching for an 87-year-old who went missing after her husband was found decapitated in the couple’s garage.
According to CBS Atlanta, friends found the body of 88-year-old Russell Dermond on Tuesday. Officials said that his wife, Shirley, is missing and they have enlisted the help of the FBI to assist in the search for the elderly woman.
"We need to assume, or at least pray, that Mrs. Dermond is still alive, and we desperately need to know her whereabouts," Sheriff Howard Sills said.
CNN noted that the Putnam County Sheriff's Office is treating this case as homicide-abduction and do not believe that Dermond was involved in her husband’s murder.
Authorities have said that the crime was gruesome and that the elderly man was actually beheaded. They have not yet been able to locate his missing head.
The brutality of the crime leads police to believe that it was not random and that the couple, who live in a wealthy gated community, were targeted.