Inset: Jeremyah Campbell (Brevard County Sheriff”s Office). Background: Home in Melbourne, Florida, where his grandparents lived. He is accused of killing them (Google Maps).
A Texas man is behind bars after he drove some 1,200 miles to his grandparents’ home in Florida and murdered them, before “sobbing uncontrollably” when found by cops and telling them that “God told him to send his grandparents to him,” according to authorities.
Jeremyah Campbell, 22, stands accused of two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of 83-year-old, George White and his wife, 81-year-old Mary White.
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Deputies from the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office responded around 8:45 p.m. July 23 to a home in the 2500 block of Washington Street in Melbourne for a shooting. According to a probable cause arrest affidavit, George White ran to his neighbor’s house and knocked on the door, begging them to call 911.
The neighbor opened the door and let George White inside, and went to call 911 when she heard gunshots coming through her door, the affidavit says. George White was shot in the chest and the neighbor’s 25-year-old granddaughter was also hit by the gunfire. Paramedics rushed him to a hospital where he died. The neighbor’s granddaughter suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Cops then entered the White home where they found Mary White in a breezeway, shot in her face and hand. She was pronounced dead.
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As deputies were investigating, they saw a man later identified as Campbell walking in the area. He was “sobbing uncontrollably and shouting a stream of incoherent words,” police wrote. Deputies approached him and he shouted that he wanted to get his Porsche. Eventually, he was taken into custody.
While he was in the back of the police cruiser, he allegedly yelled that “‘God’ told him to send his grandparents to him.” He then identified George White as his grandfather, the affidavit stated.
Later, he allegedly told detectives, “Now Satan sees. I am a valuable man of the Kingdom.” He also said his grandfather was “Going to take my butt. My manhood,” per cops. He declined to speak further with investigators who have not publicly-divulged a motive.
Campbell had recently driven from his home in McKinney, Texas, to visit his grandparents in Melbourne, Florida. He remains in the Brevard County Jail without bond. His next court date is scheduled for Aug. 21.
As Law&Crime previously reported, neighbor Terry French spoke to local affiliate NBC affiliate WESH about what allegedly unfolded and how George White was frantically trying to get his help before being shot.
“George was standing here inside the door, and we had it locked so nobody could get in,” French said. “Somebody over in this area, I think, had a 9-millimeter, and he put these holes in the door,” he alleged, noting how George was shot inside French’s home. “He went in the bathroom … shut the door, and that was it.”
Neighbors in the area described the situation as terrifying in interviews with WESH, with nearly half a dozen gunshots ringing out at one point.
“Five gunshots, a pause, then the last one,” said resident Shea Stewart. “Then, I heard the scream of a woman.”
French remembered the victims fondly.
“George was probably — and Mary — to me, and I’ve been knowing him for 30 years … one of the best neighbors I ever had,” French told WESH. “He’d do anything for you.”
