Richmond Hill, GA: Deaths of man, woman called murder suicide

Author: Jamie Parker

RICHMOND HILL - Bryan County sheriff's deputies responding to a report of shots fired early Tuesday morning discovered a burning house with two bodies inside, both with gunshot wounds to the head.
Sheriff Clyde Smith said deputies were summoned about 1 a.m. to a Smith Road residence to investigate shots fired at the house.
"It was true," Smith said. "They went to the house behind it, located at 20500 Ga. Highway 144, and heard smoke alarms going off. They knocked on the door, but nobody answered. The fire department entered the house, found two bodies in the bedroom on the bed - a male lying crossways across a female."
Smith said Jeffrey Minor apparently used a handgun to fire two shots into the head of his sleeping wife, Gail. He then went outside and fired 10 shots from an assault rifle through the house next door, Smith said. He then went back into his house, ransacked it, set it on fire, returned to the bedroom, and fired a shot from the same handgun he had used on his wife into his own head and fell across her body, Smith said.
The question Smith can't answer is why any of it happened.
Neighbors couldn't add much.
"They had been pretty good neighbors," Smith said. "The neighbors said they had never had any fallings out with the Minors, just a little conversation over a dog visiting from one house to the other. But other than that they had never even spoken to the people."
An all-day investigation by the sheriff's department and a GBI agent didn't reveal many clues.
"I have no idea as to what the motive may have been," he said. "I couldn't begin to tell you. It's very puzzling. We found no note."
Smith said the case is just about closed.
"We've pretty much finished investigating," he said. "We, along with the GBI, worked it all day and I don't know what more we are going to find out. Both the victim and the perpetrator are deceased, we aren't going to get much in the way of statements."
GBI Special Agent Micah Ward said the Bryan County Sheriff's Department handled the bulk of the investigation.
"We have an agent who has extremely good working relations with them. They asked him to come and provide them with an extra set of eyes and see if he saw anything different than they did, but they had it pretty well wrapped up," he said.