Three Florida friends were killed on their way to go fishing. Here’s what we know
It was the call that no parent ever wants to get.
“Help,” a dying Brandon Rollins, 27, told his father, Cyril Rollins, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
The call came Friday night from Frostproof, Fla., where the younger Rollins, along with friends Damion Tillman, 23, and Keven Springfield, 30, were killed on their way to go fishing. As of Monday afternoon, there were no suspects.
“I’ve been to a lot of murder scenes in my life and this ranks among the worst,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a news conference.
The three friends, all of whom were from Frostproof, arrived at the lake in two separate pickup trucks. Tillman is believed to have gotten there first at around 10 p.m. He was beaten and shot, according to the sheriff’s office.
Rollins and Springfield came soon after. Investigators said their truck was “shot up.”
As Rollins lay dying, he called his father who immediately rushed to the lake. The sheriff’s office wouldn’t release the details of that final call, but Cyril Rollins described the final moments in an interview with WFLA-TV.
“We heard some background and ... fussing,” the senior Rollins said of the initial call. “But I left, I went on out here. When I got there I was looking for my son. It was a mess. I found my son. I was holding him ... he was telling me what happened but I was too shocked to know what was going on.”
Detectives believe there was more than one suspect involved in the triple killing. Judd added that although investigators have yet to establish a connection between the victims and the killers, the seclusion of the area could indicate this wasn’t random.
“Our intuitiveness tells us you just don’t stumble upon somebody out here,” Judd said. “This is a clay dirt road way out in the middle of what we call God’s Country on the way to nice little fishing lake. It’s not like there’s a lot of people around here.”
Judd asked for the public’s help in solving what he deemed a “massacre.”
Anyone with a tip should call the sheriff’s office at 863-298-6200 or Heartland Crime Stoppers at 800-226-TIPS (8477). A $30,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest.
“The victims, the parents and their families deserve for us to solve this sooner rather than later,” Judd said.
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 2:41 PM.
