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House of horrors: Bones found near home where couple were bound for days

Sheriff’s office sorting through the claims made by Aubrey Lumpkin

By Don Coble don@claytodayonline.com
Posted 4/20/22

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – From the start, Aubrey Lamar Lumpkin has provided the Clay County Sheriff’s Office with an assortment of confessions, confusion and possible contradictions.

Now it’s up …

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House of horrors: Bones found near home where couple were bound for days

Sheriff’s office sorting through the claims made by Aubrey Lumpkin


Posted

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – From the start, Aubrey Lamar Lumpkin has provided the Clay County Sheriff’s Office with an assortment of confessions, confusion and possible contradictions.

Now it’s up to the agency to slowly put the pieces together to solve one of the most bizarre crimes in county history.

Lumpkin, 46, was taken to the Clay County Jail on April 12 after he called 911 to first tell dispatchers “I’m a piece of S***” and that he’d done some “horrible things.” He then said he needed medical assistance for an elderly couple.

He repeatedly told the dispatcher he wanted to turn himself in and he didn’t want to be harmed, but he didn’t tell the dispatcher the nature of the true emergency.

What deputies and fire rescue found was troubling.

They found a couple in their 70s with their feet, hands and mouths bound by duct tape. According to the arrest report, the couple was suffering from being “extremely dehydrated, covered in feces, malnourished and suffering from infections and lesions from being bound for more than 48 hours.”

While he was being handcuffed, Lumpkin told deputies, “he had murdered someone,” CCSO said.

Three days later, investigators found what they believed to be human remains behind the home, Sheriff Michelle Cook said.

“During while the subject was detained, he made several statements about potentially burning somebody in a property located next to the house, knowing that he had had access to that property for at least the time while he was there,” Cook said. “We began a search of the property. (Friday) we have uncovered what we believe may potentially be human remains. I cannot tell you how long those remains have been there. Been there for a while. We do not know who the person is at this time. So, the investigation for us is really now beginning as we attempt to identify the remains and follow this investigation to a logical conclusion. In the wooded area behind the house was behind the house.”

Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Fire Rescue and Emergency Management joined the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, human cadaver K-9s from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office and anthropology students from the University of Florida in a search of the house and adjoining properties.

Among other things, Lumpkin said he had an accomplice.

Now it’s up to detectives to sort through the claims.

Investigators weren’t sure if Lumpkin’s early confessions were true, so they treated the area as an active crime scene and a rare opportunity to get real-life training.

“What I will tell you is that we have just about all of our detectives working on this case,” Cook said. “Mr. Lumpkin made a lot of statements that night and so we're taking every statement that he made and running it down. So, we don't I don't we don't know yet if there was anybody else involved in this. We don't know what Mr. Lumpkins’s involvement was in this other than he said there. There was a body buried back there. But we're going to continue to investigate this.”

Equipment was removed from the scene by Sunday, April 17.

Cook asked the public for help finding answers to solving some of Lumpkin’s comments.

“What I would say is that if anybody has any information on the whereabouts of any family members, we would like for them to come forward and talk to us, or if anybody has any information or was with Mr. Lumpkin in the last few weeks, or if he's ever made any statements to anybody about anything he's been involved in, that can potentially be related,” she said. “We really need those people to come forward so that we can piece the story together.”

Lumpkin is being held in the Clay County Jail without bond. His next court appearance is May 16.