Boy, 4, ran a mile soaked in blood after seeing ‘green monster’ – truth was horrifying | US | News

A young lad was horrified when he walked into his great-grandparents’ bedroom the next morning after waking up in the night to discover a “green monster” appearing above his bed. Dameon Huffman, who lived with his great-grandparents Jack and Linda Myers, told a teacher how he witnessed their faces “melt” into the pillows.

The four-year-old boy had run a mile to the kindergarten in his bloody pajamas to tell teacher Marlene Harris about his terrifying experience. Noticing the blood on her nightgown, the woman immediately contacted the police.

Officers quickly descended on the remote farmhouse in Drake County, Ohio, where they found the couple’s bodies. They had been shot at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun.

“It was one of the most sensational scenes I’ve ever experienced,” one first responder told Oxygen’s In Ice Cold Blood.

There was no shortage of suspects. Jack and Linda, both still in their fifties, ran several small businesses.

Jack, 51, repairs and sells vehicles and was actually about to take back a car because a customer was behind on payments. He also rented out many properties.

Meanwhile, Linda, 55, ran a pizza parlor and had brought home the shop’s purchases with her on that fateful March day. But the money and many other valuables remained untouched: the police realized they were dealing with much more than a simple robbery.

When police sergeant Mark Whittaker arrived at the property he discovered the basement window had been removed and the phone line had been cut.

Podcaster in a new video about the murders Mr Ballen describes the scene: “Jack was lying on his stomach and [Sgt Whittaker] He could immediately tell that Jack had a large gunshot wound in the back of his neck. “Linda was on her back and had gunshot wounds to her face and hand, as if she had raised her hand in self-defense before being shot.”

Whittaker observed that the victims’ blood remained warm and wet, stating that they had not been dead for a long time.

“Then,” continued Mr. Ballen, “Whittaker’s partner drew his attention to a strange plastic package lying on a pillow near Jack’s head. Whittaker picked it up and saw that it was a piece of quilting fabric rolled up and covered with masking tape.”

“His best guess was that it was a homemade gun silencer. The killer probably taped it to the end of his gun to silence the sound of the explosion, and it must have gone off at some point when they started shooting.”

However, on such a remote property there was no need to install a silencer unless the perpetrator knew someone else was in the house; This suggests that they must have been someone who knew the family, knowing that Dameon was sleeping upstairs. It turns out that Dameon’s vision of the “green monster” was much more than a simple nightmare, and whoever killed Jack and Linda carefully examined the sleepy teenager after committing this terrible crime.

Detective Mike Burns interviewed Dameon, who informed him that Jack and Linda were in bed when he woke up. He initially assumed they were still asleep, but when he tried to wake them they didn’t respond.

Seeing the blood on their face, the four-year-old tried to wipe it away with a tissue but quickly realized there was too much to clean up.

“He thought their faces were melting,” Mr. Ballen says. “And to save his great-grandfather and grandfather, he ran a full mile to the nursery school to get help.”

This accounted for the blood on Dameon’s pajamas, but there were additional traces of blood in the boy’s bedroom. Burns was stunned by the situation after confirming that the frightened teenager had gone to kindergarten immediately after finding Jack and Linda’s bodies.

When he looked at the little boy, the “green monster” seemed to be covered in the blood of its victims.

Using a dollhouse to recreate the crime scene, Burns gave Dameon three small toys and asked the boy to use them to show him where everyone in the house had been the night before. Dameon placed the toy symbolizing himself on “his” bed, then Jack and Linda placed it on theirs as well.

However, he later reported to Burns that something strange had occurred. Mr Ballen said: “Later in the night he heard the bedroom door open and said someone had come in.”

He described this mysterious figure as the “Green Monster” and stated that he opened the door and pointed a gun at him. The petrified four-year-old had pretended to sleep until the intruder left.

Mark Whittaker explained that at this point in the investigation a witness “threw a bombshell at us”.

Jon Helmandollar, a neighbor of Jack’s son Gregg Myers, claimed the 25-year-old openly asked where he could buy a gun to shoot his father.

Known to be in significant financial difficulties, Myers acknowledged that he was aware that he would inherit Jack and Linda’s valuable farm after they died. However, he claimed that he did not kill them.

Darke County detective Rodney Baker was able to locate a local branch of Walmart where Myers purchased shotgun ammunition two days before the murders. Subsequent searches uncovered a Winchester shotgun in the nearby Stillwater River.

Despite an attempt to erase the serial number, forensic experts were able to identify the firearm.

The registered owner confirmed that he sold the gun to Myers.

Additional searches of the river revealed a plastic bag containing latex gloves, a green tracksuit and several 12-gauge sabot bullets. There was also a pair of size 7.5 tennis shoes; This explained why footprints found near the shattered window in the basement did not match Myers’ actual shoe size.

Researchers said the tracksuit explains the “green dragon” that Dameon described. Gregg Myers’ trial began in April 2004.

On April 27, after deliberating over key evidence for eight hours, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Two days later he was sentenced to two life sentences with no chance of parole.

Despite an appeal alleging childhood abuse and unfair jury selection, Gregg remains housed in Ohio’s notoriously overcrowded Marion Correctional Facility.