Cazual Conversation

Wayne Garrett’s wife, missing for days, had been found with a gunshot wound to the head inside two garbage bags in a shed on their property and he didn’t have much time to grieve.

He was essentially being accused of having a hand in how she ended up there. This is how it works.

As much we may abhor the idea, it is what it is and when people die mysterious deaths, their loved ones are immediately put under scrutiny by the police and, at times, the media.

God help the agency that doesn’t aggressively look at family members in such circumstances.

This understandably leads to hard feelings on the part of family members, which makes Garrett’s comments to The News Herald’s S. Brady Calhoun more noteworthy.

“I think the Bay County Sheriff’s people have been as thorough and as kind as they can be,” he said. “They are good people, and they are doing their jobs as diligently and as thorough as they can.”

How many would be so gracious?

On July 20, Nancy Garrett, 63, was reported missing from her Lisenby Avenue home. An extensive search of the property turned up nothing.

Two days later, deputies found her body, inside two garbage bags, in a shed near the home. They were sure it was not there during the initial search.

She was lying on top of newspapers, a .357-Magnum with her, and a bullet still inside her skull. She had one of her husband’s canes and a license plate resting on her hip.

Bay County sheriff’s investigators were left with three scenarios:

She was conscientious in planning her death, careful not to make a mess. Deputies somehow failed to notice the garbage bags containing her body on their initial search of the property. She simply shot herself inside two garbage bags placed on newspapers her husband collected.

Or, most of the above, but someone for some reason moved the body after death, either out of embarrassment or fear or bad judgment.

Finally, that someone else  killed her and put her in the garbage bags, hid the body from police and got caught when deputies found it in the shed.

Garrett is right, deputies were diligent. They climbed into garbage bags to see if you could do it that way. They sent deputies to hypnotists to see if a hidden detail might be revealed.

They argued possible theories amongst themselves. And this is good. If you don’t have the occassional heated exchange in your business, I suggest you’re not being creative enough.

The way this case was handled leaves us with this: There are no open questions that we can expect investigators to answer. It was thorough. There is nothing to second-guess.

Wayne Garrett was questioned hard and seems to understand. I’m guessing that’s much appreciated down at the Sheriff’s Office.

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