THE FLAGLER TRIBUNE
Bunnell, Florida
Thursday, August 8, 1974Tragedy has ended the Flagler County homecoming of a 24-year-old Army veteran back from Korea.
The bodies of Jasper Anderson and his 19-year-old wife, Patricia, were found Sunday night near a car parked on a backwoods logging road near Bunnell. Flagler County sheriff's deputies suspect that Anderson shot his wife and committed suicide, after abducting her at gunpoint at 10 a.m. Sunday from the Bunnell General Hospital where she was being treated with a broken jaw.
The tragedy began last week when Anderson returned unexpectedly from duty in Korea, and confronted his wife over marital problems, said Sgt. Larry Moody for Sheriff P.A. Edmonson.
He broke his wife's jaw, and Capt. Hugh (Ace) Drummond and I arrested him Thursday morning at his father's residence at Bunnell and we jailed him on a charge of aggravated assault, Moody recalled.
“We took a 22-caliber revolver from him and he was held under a $1,000 bond," Moody added. Moody said the woman's jaw apparently was broken with a broom handle.
On Friday, County Judge Duane A. Deen released the soldier on his own recognizance, pending trial. At 10 a.m., Sunday, Anderson forced his way into the Bunnell hospital at gunpoint and forced his injured wife to leave with him, deputies said. "He pointed a revolver at several people in the hospital," Moody said.
Sunday night, the bodies were found in a remote area by two youths in a dune buggy.
"It appears to be murder and suicide, but we're not closing the case,” Moody said Tuesday night. The case is still under investigation by the sheriff’s deputies and Jack Lynady, chief investigator for the State Attorney’s office.
