Post by Scumhunter on Sept 10, 2018 1:29:01 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: Georgia Bureau of Investigation website)
From crimewatchdaily.com:
Husband named suspect in wife's murder moves to Costa Rica with nanny
The husband, the wife, the nanny and a murder. It's a story that starts in Georgia and ends more than 3,000 miles away in Costa Rica.
This is the couple that wanted to stay hidden. And this is the video they don't want you to see.
Crime Watch Daily hunted these two down in their tropical hideaway, and they aren't happy to see us. They know something -- they did something. Are they trying hide something?
It starts in Fort Valley, Georgia. You couldn't find a better example of Southern Hospitality than Doris Worrell. At The Westfield School in nearby Perry, Ga. she was the cheerleader that everybody loved.
At the University of Georgia, during a winter storm, Doris met a young aspiring golf pro named Jon Worrell. Right out of college Doris takes the name Worrell and the couple puts down roots a hundred miles from Fort Valley in Jon's hometown of Douglas, Georgia.
Doris gets a job as a schoolteacher and the family grows, first by two girls, then a little boy. But the expanding brood squeezes out Jon's dreams of professional golf. He started a family amusement center he'd call Jon's Sport Park with a go-kart track, an arcade, even a ball pit for little kids, and an obstacle course.
At church services one Sunday, the family met a young girl in need, a shy, pretty 15-year-old name Paola Yarberry, an immigrant without papers from Venezuela. She'd been abandoned by her guardian aunt and found herself on the church's doorstep, homeless.
"My sister Doris had a heart of gold and she said 'Come stay, come stay, you can sleep on our sofa,' and Paula did, and somehow it transitioned to her staying on the sofa a few nights to her living with them," said Doris's sister, Le Ann Tuggle.
Paola fits right in, helping with the younger kids, working side by side with Jon at the sport park. After four years, at the age of 19, she became one of the family.
On the sweltering hot Douglas morning of Sept. 20, 2006, everything changed.
Jon's Sport Park was closed. Jon and Paola had scheduled some deep cleaning of the facility. That day, Doris, normally a stay-at-home mom, would help clean the kiddie tunnels. Around 9:30 a.m. Jon allegedly ducks out for a trip to the hardware store, leaving Doris and Paola alone. And sometime between 9:40 and 11:15, gunfire explodes in Jon's Sport Park.
A 911 call comes in from a man claiming someone shot his wife.
Jon's wife Doris lies dead in a pool of blood shot once in the head, point-blank. There's no sign of a weapon and no sign of the killer.
"[Paola] went and climbed in a tunnel and stayed there until Jon came home," said Doris's sister Le Ann Tuggle. "She was afraid. She said she wouldn't come out of the tunnel."
Who would gun down this church-going mother of three in cold blood?
Soon, Le Ann claims, Jon and Paola are spending long days and nights working at the sports park.
Paola is arrested because she doesn't have legal status.
"She was at a very nice restaurant here in town," said Robert Preston, editor and publisher of DouglasNow.com. "She was picked up during lunch, arrested, taken in a van and taken off, just that fast."
Facing lockup and deportation, the 19-year-old finally decides to speak. And Paola drops a bombshell about Doris's murder.
"Paola made statements that led agents to believe she had more information about the death than she was willing to give the agents at the time of her deportation," said Mark Pro, Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent in charge.
Two people are arrested, and it's not who you think.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has not named Jon and Paola as suspects in the murder.
Paola's bail is road-blocked by the Coffee County District Attorney.
In a letter to Immigration opposing her bond, the D.A. claims Paola is "withholding crucial information in a murder investigation."
And the D.A. writes Jon Worrell is "the main suspect in the murder of his wife."
And the 19-year-old's defense team argues without a smoking gun they can't keep Paola locked up, but authorities do run her out of town. Paola ended up in Costa Rica.
Jon moved to Fernandina Beach, Florida, according to Robert Preston.
Things heat up in Douglas: Two arrests for Doris's murder send shock waves through Jon's hometown.
"Glidden Rodriguez and Brandon Cage were arrested on conspiracy to commit murder charges," said GBI Special Agent Mark Pro.
The charge "conspiracy to commit murder" means they had allegedly discussed plans for a murder, but not that they actually pulled the trigger. It begs the question: If they were planning Doris's murder -- with whom?
After nearly five weeks in custody, authorities release Rodriguez and Cage.
"They felt like there was insufficient evidence to move forward with the case," said Mark Pro.
It grinds the investigation to a standstill. But several months later, Jon Worrell makes another move.
"Jon took the family dog to the vet and had him euthanized, then went and withdrew the children from school in the middle of the day and flew to Costa Rica," said Le Ann Tuggle, Doris's sister.
According to correspondence from the district attorney, Worrell is the chief suspect in the murder of his wife, and Paola Yarberry is a person of interest. No one's been officially charged with Doris's murder.
A judge orders Paola to be deported from the United States. Then Jon suddenly uproots his children for the second time in two years, this time to the Central American nation of Costa Rica.
What could this grieving widower hope to find in Central America, a world away from his life in Georgia? Crime Watch Daily engaged the services of private investigator Frank Grimes. We sent him to the western edge of Costa Rica, to see if he could track down Jon Worrell. Jon owns a local ice-delivery service.
And his partner is his old nanny and new girlfriend, Paola Yarberry, now known by locals as "Mrs. Worrell."
Our cameras record the couple. After several minutes of skulking out of view, Jon and Paola storm over to Grimes's van. It's not to sell him ice.
There is official paperwork from the District Attorney's Office that names Jon Worrell as a suspect and Paola is called a person of interest in Doris's murder. In fact the D.A. even warns Immigration not to let Paola go, because she could be a flight risk.
Crime Watch Daily has asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for more information, but they claim there is only so much they can say because this is an ongoing investigation.
If you know anything about this case, contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at (912) 389-4103.
Link to full "Crime Watch Daily" story and video segments crimewatchdaily.com/2016/09/22/husband-named-suspect-in-wifes-murder-moves-to-costa-rica-with-nanny/
Georgia Bureau of Investigation page on this case: gbi.georgia.gov/case/unsolved-homicide-314
Thoughts? Found another case from Crime Watch Daily (which was unfortunately cancelled) that I didn't know we didn't put in the unsolved on TV section of this site. Obviously the cloud of suspicion seems to be mainly focused on Jon and Paola.
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