FROSTPROOF, Fla. – A 26-year-old with 230 previous felony charges is among three people arrested in the brutal killings of three men who went fishing at a Central Florida lake on Friday.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Damion Tillman, 23, Brandon Rollins, 27, and Keven Springfield, 30, were all found dead in Frostproof, where the best friends had met Friday at a remote boat ramp.
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At a Wednesday morning news conference, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said that Tony “TJ” Wiggins, 26, William “Robert” Wiggins, 21, and Mary Whittemore, 27, were all arrested after investigators pieced together evidence from the murders.
During the homicide investigation, detectives found a Dollar General bag and receipt from the night of the murders and then worked their way back from there. Detectives received tips that one of the suspects might be Troy Wiggins, who was later identified as a person seen in the video at the Dollar General.
“Everybody knows that Tony Wiggins is the prime suspect for anything that goes wrong, and that’s easy to assume when at 26 years of age, he’s got 230 felony charges. And he’s been arrested consistently from the time he was 12 years old,” Judd told WKMG-TV. “This is a guy who can hurt you just because it’s the right thing for him to do at that moment in time with his three brain cells.”
The Sheriff’s Office said a search of Troy Wiggins’ mobile home yielded ammunition that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement matched to the shell casings found at the scene of the triple homicide.
Detectives interviewed all three suspects, and their stories were inconsistent and contradicting each other. Whittemore admitted to purchasing the ammunition, and to being with the brothers on the night of the murder but didn’t make any additional statements.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the three suspects drove to a McDonald’s after the brutal killings, where they ordered 10 double cheeseburgers, and two McChicken sandwiches. The next morning Robert Wiggins took his truck to a car wash in Lake Wales and washed the clay from it.
TJ Wiggins was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, tampering with evidence, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of ammunition by a convicted felon.
Robert Wiggins was charged with tampering with evidence, accessory after the fact of capital felony.
Whittemore was charged with accessory after the fact of capital felony.
Judd, who has worked in Polk County since 1972 called the murder scene “horrific,” describing the deaths as a “massacre.” He said the victims were beaten and shot.
“I’ve been to a lot of murder scenes in my life, and this ranks among the worst,” Judd said during a Saturday news conference.