As Putnam County Sheriff's investigators continue to search for Shirley Dermond and look for the person who killed her husband Russell, the couple's adult children arrived Wednesday at their Lake Oconee home to help look for clues.
According to Putnam County tax records, that home is valued around one million dollars. The Dermonds have lived there since 1994.
Though Sheriff Howard Sills says they had retired, they earned a living in the fast food business. Records show the Dermonds owned Wendy's and Hardees franchises as recently as the late 1990's.
Two of their sons, Bradley and Keith, followed in their parents footsteps. They own Florida-based Ramsey Development, which operates fast-food restaurants. According to the Florida Secretary of State's Office, the firm employs 700 people and generates more than $14 million in revenue a year.
Previously, the brothers owned and managed Dermond Food Services, a family business that legal documents show dissolved voluntarily in 2001 with all fees paid and no signs of outstanding debt.
Bradley Dermond is also a real-estate agent at Sotheby's International Realty, according to his profile on sothebysrealty.com.
Another son, Mark, was fatally shot at age 47 in August 2000 as he was buying drugs near the Atlanta University Center. The man convicted of the murder, Troy Major, is serving a life sentence at the maximum-security Georgia State Prison in Tattnall County, according to the Department of Corrections database.
As for Russell and Shirley Dermond, a search of online tax records doesn't show any other property holdings.
