Sheriff: Robbery Likely Motive In Triple Homicide

Three people were found dead Saturday morning in a vacant Putnam County home the sheriff's office said is used as a neighborhood hang-out.

According to sheriff's spokesman Maj. Keith Riddick, the men's bodies were found around 10:30 a.m. Saturday inside a building at 108 Carver St. that had been licensed as a neighborhood tavern but was closed down several years ago.

In recent years, the building, which is in a residential neighborhood just outside Palatka, was used as a late-night hangout where people gathered to play pool on the lone pool table inside or play cards or talk, Riddick said.

Family members were forced to wait patiently for hours, before hearing positive identifications of their loved ones.

By afternoon the victims were identified as Jerome Anthony Henry, 48, of Seville and Richard David Smith and Robert Erwin Ford, both 50-year-old Palatka residents.

Investigators said the cause of death will be determined in an autopsy on Monday, but the likely motive for the killings was robbery.

A person hired by the building's owner to clean up the property found the men about 10:30 a.m. and called authorities.

By late Saturday, Riddick said investigators had developed a person of interest in the case who was being interviewed, but that no one had been arrested in connection with the case.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the 7th Judicial Circuit State Attorney?s Office homicide unit incident joined the sheriff's office in investigating the incident.

Anyone with any information about the deaths is asked to call Crimestoppers at 888-277-8477.