LYNN HAVEN — A Bay County grand jury indicted three people Wednesday in the torture and murder of an elderly Lynn Haven man.
Grand jurors indicted David Ian Challender, 27, Ashley Nichole Griffin, 28, and Kevin Gene Jeffries, 28, of first-degree murder, armed burglary and armed robbery. According to Bay County Sheriff’s investigators, the three beat and strangled 90-year-old Wallace Scott in his Lynn Haven home on April 4.
Prosecutors will decide within the week whether the facts of the case meet the statutory requirements to pursue the death penalty, officials with the State Attorney’s Office wrote in a news release. All three are scheduled for arraignment May 28.
In an April news conference, BCSO investigators linked the slaying to two of Scott’s former caretakers. The day his body was discovered they were under suspicion of stealing and using Scott’s credit card and checkbook, officials said. Sherri Mercer and Deborah Cupp were charged with fraudulent use of a credit card and principal to fraudulent use of a credit card, respectively.
Mercer had endeared herself to Scott, and she was a beneficiary in his will, investigators said. Scott reported the fraudulent charges to BCSO investigators in March, and he had an appointment with an attorney to remove her from his will April 8.
Scott was killed April 4. He was beaten into submission and tied up in a bedroom in his house. The suspects allegedly hurt Scott to motivate him to tell them the personal identification numbersto his bank accounts, investigators said.
Challender is Mercer’s son, Jeffries is her nephew and Griffin is Jeffries’ girlfriend, officials said.