The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office requested a comparison of the Perisho homicide to the Brandt/Jones homicides. The Brandts had resided on Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys since 1986.
In 1989, Sherry Perisho’s body was discovered in the water on Big Pine Key. She had been eviscerated and her heart had been removed. Her head had been severed to the spinal column. She was discovered floating in the water near the Big Pine Channel Bridge. Her boat was overturned and was nearby. It was reported that the victim was discovered at approximately 10:15 p.m. by a person fishing in the area. It was determined that she had only been in the water for a short period of time.
Perisho was a homeless resident who lived in a dinghy-type boat along the Big Pine Channel on the south side of the Big Pine Channel Bridge. The Brandts resided in a residential neighborhood on Big Pine Key located on the north side of the Big Pine Channel Bridge a very short distance from the crime scene.
FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
Case Number: MI-73-1157 Serial #:1
Author: D’Ambrosia, Leslie
Office: Miami
Activity Start Date: 10/05/2004 Activity End Date: 10/05/2004
Approved By: Browdy, Shirley B.
Description: Meeting with Monroe County SO re: Perisho homicide
On this same date, the above mentioned individuals responded to the Brandt residence on Big Pine Key.
A viewing of the interior and exterior of the Brandt residence was conducted. An on-site viewing of the former Perisho crime scene was also conducted.
Det. Sgt. Dally advised that the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office had collected several items from the Brandt residence and had turned the items over to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office.
Among some of the items were diaries or agenda books of Teri Brandt, Carl Brandt’s computer, and miscellaneous photographs and papers. An anatomical chart had previously been discovered on the backside of the master bedroom door. The chart depicted the muscular and skeletal systems of a female.
SA D’Ambrosia maintained contact with Special Agent Tom Davis of the Melbourne, Florida FDLE Office regarding this case. SA Davis was previously contacted by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office regarding this investigation.
Det. Sgt. Dally requested a crime scene assessment/linkage comparing the Seminole County crime to the Perisho homicide.
On Wednesday, October 6, 2004 Special Agents Leslie D’Ambrosia and Edward Royal met with Monroe County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) Sergeant James Norman in an effort to determine the location, where a Polaroid photograph was taken of what appears to be Sherry Perisho. That photograph was located in the MCSO case file and it shows a female sitting on a concrete wall along the edge of a canal, which looks very similar to the canal on which Teri and Charles Brandt resided in Big Pine Key, Florida.
The photograph had to have been taken before July 19, 1989, which was the date that Perisho’s body was found along the edge of the channel, less than a quarter of a mile from the Brandt residence.
Sergeant Norman escorted SA D’Ambrosia and SA Royal to various waterways along the southern tip of Big Pine Key, including the “Brandts’” canal. The entire area has undergone a great deal of change in the past fifteen years and after visiting several locations, a determination could not be made as to where that photograph was taken.
On October 6, 2004, Special Agent Dennis Haley, SA Edward Royal and SA Leslie D’Ambrosia responded to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and met with Det. Sgt. Patricia Dally, Det. James Norman, and Det. Trisha Almeda concerning the unsolved homicide of Sherry Irene Perisho.
Det. Trisha Almeda advised that she was responsible for the crimescene processing on the Perisho case. She allowed the above individuals to view Perisho’s boat and made her case reports available for review. It was noted that the boat had scratches on the bottom portion, consistent with the offender cutting the victim on this surface, according to Almeda. Additionally, Det. Almeda advised that she noted in her report that green paint chips were recovered from the neck wound of the victim. This would also be consistent with the victim having been placed on top of the overturned boat when her neck was cut. The bottom of the boat was painted green.
SA Royal noted that an unidentified fingerprint of AFIS quality was recovered from a beer can on the victim’s boat. The fingerprint had been discovered by the Broward Sheriff’s Office, who performed some of the analysis of evidence in this case. SA Haley noted the laboratory case numbers for reference to FDLE laboratory analysis. SA Haley advised he would research the results of the FDLE laboratory analysis.
And what if Charlie had not hung himself from the rafters inside Michelle’s garage after the murders? Would either the investigators or the families have gotten the answers as to his motives? The answer to the first “if” is that Charlie’s suicide was almost inevitable. As for the answers, it is doubtful as to whether even Charlie knew why he committed all of his crimes.
M. Scott Peck might attribute Charlie’s final curtain on his acting to the expenditure of sheer psychic energy and the fear he experienced. “Think of the amount of psychic energy required for the continuing maintenance of the pretense so characteristic of evil! They perhaps direct at least as much energy into their devious rationalizations and destructive compensations as the healthiest do into loving behavior. Why? What possesses them, drives them? Basically, it is fear. They are terrified that the pretense will break down and they will be exposed to the world and to themselves. They are continually frightened that they will come face-to-face with their own evil.” Charlie Brandt was finally faced with his own fear.
For her part, Mary Lou Jones, psychiatric nurse, sister, and mother, has her own theory:
“I believe he had a covert evil nature, and I believe he was able to control it and cover it. He was an invisible killer.”
WARDING OFF EVIL
Shortly after their daughter’s death, Bill and Mary Lou Jones set up the Michelle Lynn Jones Foundation.
“It outlined three initiatives, and they all moved in a positive direction,” Mary Lou stated, and then added, “The mission statement is on our website.”
The website can be found at http://www.mlj-foundation.org.
And indeed, the website for the Michelle Lynn Jones Foundation lists its history, mission statements, and initiatives as follows:
HISTORY
During the subsequent investigation of Michelle and Teri’s gruesome murders, the discovery was made that Carl Brandt had murdered before. He took the life of his mother, attempted to murder his father and then tried to kill his older sister thirty three years earlier in Fort Wayne, Indiana, when he was thirteen years old.
Although he was never convicted of a crime, the Grand Jury conducting the investigation summarized their concerns with a message stating that Carl Brandt should be closely monitored, as they feared he might repeat this crime. Intervention at the time was to place Carl Brandt in a state mental hospital for one year, after holding him in the county jail for four months. In July 1972, Carl Brandt was released from the state mental hospital. Diagnosis: no longer mentally ill.
In 1986, Charlie Brandt married Teri Helfrich in Ormond Beach, Florida. Within the year, they relocated to the Florida Keys where they lived until their deaths. Throughout the discovery of Michelle and Teri’s murders those who knew Charlie were shocked and in disbelief—that is, until the secret of Charlie’s murder of his mother, and attempted murder of his father and older sister, were made public by his older sister.
Yes, an “invisible criminal” had lived among us for all the years we had known him.
OUR MISSION
The mission of the Michelle Lynn Jones Foundation is to promote personal safety by raising public awareness about invisible criminals in our communities through public education and advocacy and enhanced education for health care professionals and law enforcement, enabling law enforcement to conduct more comprehensive criminal investigations, as nee
ded.
These major initiatives will require time and your support to process and achieve the intended outcomes.
EDUCATION
PROTECTED DATABASE
PUBLIC AWARENESS
FIRST INITIATIVE — Enhanced education of the clinical/scientific community, educators, law enforcement and the judicial system, related to the egregious nature of violent crimes committed by juveniles, such as murder or attempted murder. The focus is on the long-term implications for individuals and families when these crimes are erased. Where do these criminals go? Who do these criminals become? Moreover, the additional effort with this education is to address the effects of keeping these crimes a secret from those who may be adversely affected because of this action.
Mary Lou Jones, who holds a Doctorate degree, explained that these were areas of focus. “Once we conducted our investigation and did a thorough background of what happened, we tried to figure out how that affected our world and what we needed to do about it. We needed to raise awareness that there are people walking around us who have very dark natures; we need to be aware of this and ask questions.
“We want to educate the health care community that there are juvenile criminals who are not rehabilitated, and there need to be mechanisms.”
Mary Lou then reached out to Dr. Sally Johnson, a psychiatrist who had been a family practitioner, who taught in the Psychiatry Department at the University of North Carolina.
Mary Lou Jones and Dr. Johnson met in Dr. Johnson’s kitchen, since she was already retired and no longer an office. “We spent the whole morning around her kitchen table,” Michelle’s proactive mother explained. “I told Sally, ‘I am asking for any suggestions you have about educating the health care community. We had a person who was a criminal in our midst for eighteen years and we didn’t know. And his father knew and his sister knew. I don’t believe for a minute that if my sister had known she would have married him.’”
Dr. Johnson thought it was too soon after Teri and Michelle’s deaths to formulate any plan, but she did think it would be helpful to hold a panel about juvenile criminals.
“Juvenile criminals are put into juvenile homes,” Mary Lou said. “If they are incarcerated, it is until they reach the age of eighteen, and their records are expunged. Dr. Johnson offered to convene a panel of child and juvenile psychologists under the umbrella title, ‘Juvenile Offenders Challenges and Dispositions.’ That meeting was held in October, 2004, at the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law in Chicago, Illinois—international meeting, which is known by the acronym, The APPLE Group.”
Mary Lou explained: “They clearly presented the challenges of juveniles who commit a crime and are treated and become productive citizens. However, there is a population that is not, that cannot be rehabilitated.”
Mary Lou spoke to some people in several states who mentioned assessment tools that are particular indicators for remorse. “What they have discovered is, if the juvenile shows no remorse, he or she has a high likelihood of reoffending.”
Mary Lou firmly believes that there are limits to the rehabilitation of some juveniles. The problem is that they might not be retained, either in the jail or mental health system, until they reach the age of adulthood.
“In the adult world, if someone is incarcerated and there are concerns about their behavior, they can retain them beyond their sentence. With the juveniles, they are released and they expunge those records.”
As to public records and prior criminal records, Mary Lou believes that before the Internet, Google, Facebook, and MySpace and other social media, the expunging of records might have been a concern, whereas now it might not be such a priority.
“Right now you can find out about an individual, so that area of concern is probably not as important,” she said. “The other area is interacting with the law enforcement community, and Sheriff Don Eslinger and Detective Rob Hemmert took the initiative of enhancing the databases that are used by law enforcement to investigate crimes.
“What they have done in Florida is to focus their energy on improving the content and quality of the databases that investigate criminal profiles. A critical piece is working with the I.T. division. That has been phenomenal because of what they did in Central Florida, and that now exists in every county in Central Florida. When a crime is committed, regardless of age, they enter the specifics, kind of crime, instruments and tools, and whether they knew the suspects. So if even if a juvenile criminal who committed a violent crime was eight or nine or ten years old, it remains available to law enforcement. This is now a matter of practice in Florida.”
What that means is that, in Central Florida, for example, if an investigator is in Brevard County, he or she can pull up, on his or her laptop, information that is of a similar nature, and can see if anyone living in that community has that kind of alignment.
Peggy Moore, Michelle’s good friend, wrote an addendum to the initiative to include the law and its applications.
Peggy has an ample background from which to draw her knowledge. She was a two-term mayorally appointed commissioner for the City of Annapolis Housing Authority. She also served on the board for Psychotherapeutic Treatment Services from 1991 to 1999 in Annapolis. This was a private organization that provided transitional housing for mentally challenged individuals. Peggy then went to work for American Communities Property Trust, a publicly traded real-estate holdings, land development, and property management company. She was vice president of US Operations until the company was sold in 2010, and then she moved back to Florida, but stayed on with the operation as a consultant for two years.
She titled her addendum: Michelle Lynn’s Law Initiative. It reads as follows:
“Charlie Brandt killed his pregnant mother at age thirteen. He was institutionalized for a year and released back into his father’s custody. Psychiatric reports indicated he should have been monitored; however, there was nothing left of Charlie Brandt to follow. It was as if the slate were wiped clean. Even his younger sisters were unaware he’d killed their mother. They believed their mother died in a car accident. It wasn’t until his family was contacted about the murders and Charlie’s suicide that they became aware he murdered their mother.
The Michelle Lynn Jones Foundation has been set up to increase public awareness about invisible criminals. An awareness that someone, living next door to you, and unbeknownst to you, might be a criminal responsible for violent crimes. We all deserve the right to protect ourselves from the enemy—from becoming victims ourselves. However, in the case of Charlie Brandt, he was a minor, so his file was sealed. Any government agency doing a background check on Charlie would have discovered nothing of a criminal nature. Now, the tragic events of 911 created new policies, and opened some doors for deeper investigations. However, the law still states that a minor has full rights of file confidentiality, regardless of the type of crime they committed.
The Michelle Lynn Jones Initiative acknowledges that we need to protect our young people in society from becoming stigmatized, or stifling their future due to a mistake they made during a time when they were under eighteen, such as shoplifting. Shoplifting results from a poor decision made by a minor, but not one causing bodily harm to others. We believe if a minor commits a violent crime, specifically murder or rape, they do not have the right of non-disclosure and confidentiality. We believe that at the very minimum, law enforcement agencies should have access to that information.
There are many law enforcement agencies that have begun to network and have created global-protected sites that allow them to have access to view or upload information about crimes committed by anyone of any age, information vital to keeping people safe.
The catch is that this is not the law. Everything law enforcement is doing is on their own terms, creating their own initiative, and flying under the radar in order to better protect society. The issue with the efforts of some law enforcement agencies is that they are not comprehensive and it is not backed by a law requiring agencies to und
ertake them. Not all law enforcement agencies participate. and anything committed prior to the initial date the agency commenced their initiative is not included. They should have access to any information that would be considered vital to the safety and well-being of the public.
It is important to know that if Charlie Brandt’s juvenile record was not sealed, his victims would probably be alive today, most certainly Michelle Jones. When Charlie Brandt killed a woman under a bridge a few blocks from his home, a witness saw him running across the street and this witness assisted law enforcement in creating a sketch of the person the witness saw. The sketch had an uncanny resemblance to Charlie Brandt. If law enforcement were able to look at Charlie’s record, they would have investigated him.
We need to protect the rights of our children. We also need to protect the rights of every citizen. In order to do this, there has to be a compromise. A compromise that is based on common sense. Statistics have proven that violent criminals go on to repeat their crimes 65 percent of the time. The initiative for Michelle Lynn’s Law has been created to draw public awareness and support to have the current laws examined and reorchestrated to better protect society. We have modern technology that enables us to better gather facts and support the reasons why a change is not only needed but forthcoming. We need your support. To be a voice in our initiative to create change, friend Friends of Michelle Lynn Jones on Facebook; by doing so, you will be signing a petition to support change in our current legal system that will allow law enforcement agencies the ability to have access to all violent criminals in their databases. Maybe you have a Charlie Brandt living in your neighborhood. Shouldn’t you have the right to know?”
Christine Dumouchel became friends with Michelle Jones in junior high school. “Michelle and I were really close friends growing up,” Christine said. “I lived close to their house and Bill and Mary Lou were like my parents.” Christine remembered meeting Charlie, and the impression he left on her was not good. “I met him once when I was young. And I remember thinking, ‘He is creepy.’ Michelle told me, ‘That’s my uncle, he’s all right.’ And I thought she might be embarrassed, but I sensed that something was not right with him.” Uncle Charlie suddenly sounded like the unsavory, lurking villain in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt.”
Invisible Killer Page 20
