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Pair sought in deputy's slaying found dead in SUV
©Associated Press
April 11, 2003
BOCA RATON -- Two men suspected of killing a Broward County sheriff's deputy last weekend were found shot in the head in a sport utility vehicle Thursday. Officials called it a murder-suicide.
A handgun was found with the bodies of Kevin Chermark, 25, and Christopher Brad Spicer, 24, and a hose ran from the exhaust pipe into the passenger compartment, Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller said. Evidence showed Chermark shot Spicer in the right side of the head, then shot himself under the chin, officials said.
Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne said Thursday that new evidence showed Chermark and Spicer killed Deputy Philip Billings, 25, Sunday morning while he was working off-duty as security at a Pompano Beach car dealership.
"I know we have our men," Jenne said during a news conference in Fort Lauderdale.
Jenne said the pair went to the dealership to steal the wheels off a Cadillac Escalade, using the SUV and another vehicle. They ditched one car after Billings was shot, he said.
Deputies found the ditched car, and in it some signed credit card receipts from an area gas station. Chermark and Spicer were seen on surveillance video buying beer at the gas station 23 minutes before the shooting, he said.
Jenne had said Wednesday that detectives were seeking Chermark and Spicer for questioning.
Detectives questioned Chermark and Spicer on Monday but released them because there wasn't enough evidence to hold them, Jenne said. After the new evidence was developed, and learning that the two might be in an industrial complex, a deputy searching the area found the bodies around 5 a.m. Thursday.
"It appears that both apparently had planned to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning but at some point it turned to a murder-suicide," a police report said.
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