WASHINGTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – A multi-agency manhunt ended with a homicide suspect in custody on Tuesday afternoon after being present in a mudhole.
Washington County Sheriff’s deputies in North Florida led the search, which resulted within the arrest of 40-year-old David Earl Gipson, of Caryville.
Gipson is accused of murdering 74-year-old Lettie Cooper Collins and brutally beating her daughter-in-law.
The search started on Monday and ended with Gipson’s arrest round 3 p.m. on Tuesday. Gipson was on foot for hours earlier than his arrest.
“The canine groups did not hand over, and [Gipson] did not hand over. He stored working and stored working. At one level, we got here to a spot the place he bought down in a mud gap and tried to cowl himself in mud, you see. And he is all he is doing is attempting to throw the scent of the canine off. He was simply attempting to keep away from seize, but it surely did not work, and we bought him,” Washington County Sheriff Kevin Crews mentioned.
Deputies obtained a name round 5:20 p.m. Monday from a passerby, who mentioned he had discovered the sufferer of a brutal assault strolling alongside Douglas Ferry Highway.
Crews confirmed Gipson knew the sufferer’s household, however didn’t verify the relation.
He mentioned Gipson visited the victims’ residence and threatened the daughter-in-law.
“[Gipson] acknowledged, ‘your husband and brother-in-law are thieves and owe me cash, and I am right here to take it’. The sufferer acknowledged that this time, he began taking objects from her home, and she or he started to argue with him. He then attacked her, knocking her to the bottom and handcuffing her, and in the course of the scuffle, he eliminated her clothes. The sufferer acknowledged that whereas she was mendacity on the ground, handcuffed and bare, he started attacking her mother-in-law,” Crews mentioned.
Sheriff Crews mentioned Collins was primarily “crushed to a pulp” and pronounced lifeless on the scene.
Gipson then took Collins’ daughter-in-law to his residence, the place he continued to abuse her earlier than placing her in a container in his yard. Her legs have been tied behind her again for a number of hours, and plywood weighed down the field.
She was capable of escape and make her solution to Douglas Ferry Highway, the place she was discovered. Paramedics took her to an space hospital and she or he is predicted to completely get well.
Holmes, Bay, and Jackson County Sheriff’s Places of work and the U.S. Marshal’s Service, FHP, FWC and FDLE have been concerned within the search.
Crews says Gipson has 33 earlier felony costs and was simply launched from jail in March.
