I'll spare you everything except the new information.

Prior to the shooting, the love triangle was creating tension between Gary Dean and Chief Deputy Eddie Osborn (Duh!). So Gary Dean and Scotty Fain traveled to Sheriff Eller's house to express their concerns. Dean told Eller he was afraid someone would get hurt. Eller said he had already spoken to Osborn, but didn't know if it had done any good.

Osborn later admitted to the GBI that he had driven by Dean's house a couple of times the night of the shooting to see if he was home so he could "kick his ass".

What tipped the GBI off, is that the 40 caliber shell casing were the same brand and caliber of ammunition issued to the Towns County Sheriff's Office deputies.

The GBI asked Osborn to list all the handguns he had. Osborn left out the existence of the SIG Sauer P229 .357 SiG/.40 caliber S&W semi-automatic handgun. He only admitted having it after GBI agents told him they already knew he had it.

The GBI said the gun has an interchangeable .40 caliber barrel and a .357 barrel, allowing it to fire both .357 projectiles and .40 caliber projectiles.

Osborn said the gun had been with Eller for a couple of months, and he retrieved it from Eller and turned it in to the GBI. He said he didn't know where the .40 caliber barrel was located.

(Sheriff Eller had hidden the .40 caliber barrel that Osborn used in the shooting.)

The GBI Crime Lab had determined that the bullets and fired casings from the crime scene were fired from the same weapon. The shell casings were identified as being fired from Osborn's gun by comparing the firing pin and ejector marks.

GBI Special Agent, John Cagle, said the investigation is still going on, but he does not expect any further arrests. He said the next step is to take it to the grand jury to see if they will indict.

Wildflower

Is it actually possible that a Sheriff and a Chief Deputy would not realize the crime lab would be able to identify everything the way they did?

Evidently, they never expected the GBI to be aware of what guns Towns County was issued.

And they never expected they would be able to identify that the bullets and casings were from the same gun, even if they hid the interchangeable barrel that was used.

Either they didn't know all this, or they were too panicked to think clearly.

Wildflower

I just have to roll my eyes & wonder, "what were they thinking?"

I don't think it's them panicking about the guns, it's just their "no one's going to touch me" mentality they have.   

Well if they don't then its okay for everyone to do the same thing... at least in the Enotah District. Am I the only one that thinks this is ridiculous? They have enough evidence - and confessions - to prosecute and sentence today.

There is only one reasonable explanation for these people being on the street. They have dirt on someone with a higher office than Sheriff in the Enotah district.

I'd like to go ahead and plead guilty for contempt of this kangaroo court, its judges who care nothing about its obligation to protect the public and its sorry, weak and impotent district attorney.

Maybe the word "if" just reflects the legal reality that a grand jury has to formally decide to indict. It's just procedure.

The investigators have done all they can do. Now the baton gets passed to the grand jury.

I still wonder about the barn.

Wildflower

Is it "normal" to "try and convict" folks up there before a trial has even been held?  I always thought there is something about being innocent until proven gulity.  While all the revealed "evidence" seems to point to the folks being quilty, they still have not gone to trial just yet.

Or have they?

Towns County Sheriff Arrested On Cover-Up Charges - ATLANTA

A north Georgia sheriff was arrested Tuesday morning, charged with lying to state investigators to protect a deputy accused of firing shots into the home of his wife's lover. Towns County Sheriff Rudy Eller turned himself in to Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents at about 10 a.m. at the White County Detention Center. White County is the southern neighbor of Towns County, which sits on the North Carolina state line in northeast Georgia. The GBI says Eller lied to investigators about a handgun they believe was used in a July 9 drive-by shooting at the home of Gary Dean of Hiawassee. Dean was "involved in an ongoing intimate relationship" with the wife of Towns County Chief Deputy Eddie Osborn, according to a GBI affidavit.

The affidavit says Eller originally told investigators that he had been keeping the semiautomatic firearm for Osborn for several weeks. He said he had cleaned the weapon and tried to replace a missing screw.When agents told him they believed the gun was used to fire about 10 shots into Dean's home, Eller "changed his story and admitted to the agents that he had not been truthful with them earlier in the interview," according to the affidavit. The affidavit says Eller told investigators that Osborn gave him the gun the morning of July 9 and admitted firing shots into Dean's home. Agents say Eller told them Osborn asked him to tell investigators he'd had the gun for "a couple of months."The report says Eller also admitted that when he requested a GBI investigation of the July 9 shooting he already knew who had fired the shots. Eller faces charges of making false statements, tampering with evidence, hindering and obstructing law enforcement officers and violating his oath as a public officer. Officials at the White County sheriff's office said Eller posted a $250,000 bond and was released at about noon.GBI and White County sheriff's officials said that Eller did not have an attorney as of Tuesday morning. Under Georgia law, only the governor may remove an elected official from office after an arrest. In the case of a sheriff, Gov. Sonny Perdue would appoint a three-member panel - made up of two sheriffs and state Attorney General Thurbert Baker - to study the case and make a recommendation to him whether a suspension is in order.Bert Brantley, a spokesman for Gov. Sonny Perdue, said the governor's office is monitoring the situation."We are waiting to see if a resignation is forthcoming," Brantley said. "In the absence of a resignation, we'd look at the options, which include that process." Capt. Pat Williams of the Towns County Sheriff's office said Eller had not resigned as of late Tuesday afternoon. She said he had not been in the office."The sheriff is still the acting sheriff," she said. "Although he has been arrested, that does not remove him from office." Earlier this month, as rumors about the case swirled, Eller said he had no plans to resign. "I am still the sheriff of Towns County," he said on July 21. "There are so many rumors going in this county, the truth is hard to find anywhere, and a lot of people believe things they hear." The GBI typically handles investigations involving local law enforcement officers. Bankhead said arrests of top officials are uncommon. "They happen, but it is rare," GBI spokesman John Bankhead said. "It's an unfortunate situation."Osborn, 41, and Deputy Jessie Gibson, 56, face aggravated assault and obstruction charges in the shooting. It is typical for law enforcement officers who are arrested to be processed in jails other than the ones in the communities where they serve, Bankhead said. Osborn and Gibson surrendered in neighboring Lumpkin County. Agents said when they interviewed Osborn he denied any knowledge of the shooting, but acknowledged that he had driven by Dean's home at least twice on the day before the shooting hoping to fight him if he was alone. Dean and a roommate were at home at the time of the shooting. Neither was injured in the shooting.

We already know about "Rudy's boys." If I see a Towns County Deputy car drive up my driveway, I'm getting the gun out of the closet and not letting them near my family under ANY circumstances.

No longer like Mayberry: Mountain community abuzz as infidelity, gunfire, cover-up allegations threaten to bring down sheriff, chief deputy.

By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 08/06/07

Hiawassee — For years, residents of this Georgia mountain town have complained that things aren't like they used to be. For the past month, they've watched things get downright weird.

Around midnight on July 9, somebody pulled up in front of Gary Dean's home and started shooting. Bullets tore through his front door and whizzed passed his head. Dean dove behind a bed in the back room and reached for a pistol, but the shooter drove off and left Dean to thank his strange luck.

Orange paint marks a bullet hole in the front door of the Hiawassee home of Gary Dean. A GBI report says Dean was having an 'ongoing intimate relationship' with the wife of a deputy charged in the shooting. The case has drawn so much attention that the local weekly newspaper has doubled its press runs.

He would have been dead, Dean said, if he hadn't left the kitchen just before the shooting and gone into the back bedroom to mess with a stubborn DVD player.

"I'd a-took one right here," he said, pointing at his left side as he showed a reporter around his shot-up home, where 12 bullet holes had been spray-painted orange by GBI investigators. "Another bullet would have got me somewhere in the head."

The shooting was the opening act of a saga that has folks here flummoxed as it takes more twists and turns than a mountain creek.

About a week after the shooting, authorities charged Eddie Osborn, the chief deputy of the Towns County Sheriff's Office, with aggravated assault in the attack on Dean. They also charged fellow Deputy Jesse Gibson, who allegedly drove the car that night, with aggravated assault.

Then, last week, Sheriff Rudy Eller was charged with evidence-tampering, violation of his oath of office and related offenses after admitting he lied to GBI investigators and hid evidence to protect Osborn. On Friday, Gov. Sonny Perdue named a panel to recommend whether Eller should be suspended. None of the men, all released on bond, has commented on the charges.

But the details released by the GBI when it announced the arrest of Eller — including the revelation that Osborn shot up Dean's home because Dean was having an "ongoing intimate relationship" with Osborn's wife, Michelle — added titillation to a story that already had engaged townspeople as thoroughly as theater in the round.

Demand for every tidbit is so great the local weekly newspaper, The Towns Sentinel, has doubled its press runs since the shooting, said publisher Becky Landress, as she loaded the latest edition (headline: "Sheriff arrested, but remains sheriff") into a news box outside the Huddle House restaurant late last week.

"People come in here asking for back issues, the first stories, like they're trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle," Landress said. "It's a sad story — but it's been great for business."

Inside the restaurant, it was obvious why. Regulars joked about running for sheriff now that time appears to be running out for Eller who, they said, for 11 years has run an office that played favorites and pushed people around.

"You know what they say about the sheriff's office around here?" said Rex Johnson, 57, who has lived in Towns County all his life. "You're either for them — or they're against you."

Locals are half-appalled and half-amused by the seeming tragi-comedy.

It was Eller, after all, who called the GBI to investigate the shooting at Dean's house. But Eller already knew who did the shooting when he called the GBI, and he already had hidden evidence, according to a GBI affidavit. That means, the GBI says, that the first thing Eller did when investigators showed up was lie to them.

And his attempt to hide evidence seemed bungling at best. Hiawassee sits on Lake Chatuge and is surrounded by forested mountains.

Did Eller dump the evidence in the lake or bury it in the woods? No. According to the GBI, he put the pistol barrel Osborn gave him, which connects Osborn to the shooting, in a baggie and duct-taped it inside a hidden compartment in his bedroom dresser. GBI agents retrieved it after he admitted lying and hiding the evidence, the agency said.

GBI Investigator John Cagle said he thinks Eller called the GBI into the case to avoid being suspected of a coverup. If so, he underestimated Cagle and his investigators.

"I think he [Eller] thought we wouldn't discover that Osborn owned the gun used in the shooting," Cagle said. "But we knew from talking to other people at the sheriff's office that he [Osborn] owned the pistol."

Some townspeople think the case shows how the town has changed and is no longer as insular as it once was — a place where the sheriff, after the county commissioner, could fairly well do what he wanted.

Towns County's population has almost doubled over the past 30 years as outsiders, many from Atlanta, have built homes perched along the lake and surrounding mountains.

The Georgia Mountain Restaurant has long been a favorite eating spot in this town of about 1,000, which lies about 110 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, but there's now a sushi bar up the road.

Where the Cowboy Church ("Rounding Up Souls For Jesus)" once was the spiritual touchstone on one stretch of main street, it now has competition from Bacchus — A Wine Shoppe. Stores such as Britt & Capri and resorts such as the Ridges Resort & Club cater to affluent locals and visitors.

Cultural issues aside, Rudy Roach, a former sheriff who plans to run to replace Eller, said the sheriff's office and jail simply need cleaning up.

"Ajax needs to come to town," he said. "And I'm bringing it."

District Attorney Stan Gunter said he's saddened by the strange turn of events because he's worked with Eller and his deputies in prosecuting cases over the years. He said he will take the cases to the grand jury, probably when it next meets in September. If he wins indictments and the cases go to court, the story will take more turns and The Towns Sentinal will sell more newspapers.

The place won't be the same, but it hasn't been the same for a long time, said Michael Myers, a welder who has lived in Towns County three decades.

"This place used to be Mayberry," he said, sitting at the bar at the posh Old Hiawassee Grille. "But it ain't no more."

Blairsville.com is not intended to be used for whistle-blowing. Without actual substantiation as per our Usage Policies, these posts were not appropriate for Blairsville.com's forums.

The Governor's Executive Order on this issue is located at: http://www.gov.state.ga.us/press/2007/press1500.shtml

quote:

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"This place used to be Mayberry," he said, sitting at the bar at the posh Old Hiawassee Grille. "But it ain't no more."

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Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me.
But deep down, I know that's not true.
Some of the smaller countries are neutral.
~Robert Orben

Wake up Towns/Union! This most surely goes way beyond disagreements over road maintenance and school budget kickbacks.

He should have still been in custody... This lands at the feet of the Judge and DA who let these people bond out when as I've said all along are clearly a danger to THEMSELVES or OTHERS.

Here's the link:

http://www.accessnorthgeorgia.com/news/hall/newfullstory.asp?ID=116273

Now what I don't understand is, with the TC sheriff's office under investigation, why would they put someone from the TC sheriff's office in charge of working the "investigation"? of a person who
has committed a questionable suicide and was a confirmed suspect involved in the "dereliction of duty"?

.

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