THOMASVILLE — A double murder that shattered the community more than a dozen years ago is to be the subject of a Court TV show.

The story of the deaths of two Thomasville teens on a Florida beach in 1992 is to be broadcast on “Body of Evidence.”

The teens, Megan Carr and Cherish DeSantis, were shot to death as they sunbathed at Bald Point on Alligator Point about 75 miles south of Thomasville on the Gulf of Mexico.

The girls traveled to the quiet beach during the last days of spring break. An unusually cool breeze for late March blew across the sunny beach as the girls soaked up the warm rays of the sun.

Someone who lives nearby told lawmen they heard what sounded like several gunshots about 12:30 p.m. that day, but soon dismissed the idea of gunfire in the isolated area.

A Savannah police officer and his family walking along the beach saw the girls lying on beach towels. When the family walked by a little later on the return trip, they noticed the girls did not seem to have moved, but they saw no cause for alarm.

When the girls’ bodies were discovered several hours later, they had been shot in the head. They had been dead when the police officer and his family walked by.

A profiler with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) at that time now works for Storyhouse Productions, the Washington, D.C., company that produces “Body of Evidence.” She recommended the case for an episode.

No air date has been set for the show, but it most likely will air in November. A Court TV spokesman will not be available until next week.

Capt. John Richards, Thomas County Sheriff’s Department chief of operations, was head of the agency’s criminal investigations division at the time of the murders.

Richards spent a Saturday in mid-June with a “Body of Evidence” film crew that shot footage at several locations in the community and at Alligator Point.

The murders occurred in Franklin County, Fla. The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office began an intense investigation that involved the agency’s Thomas County counterpart.

“Then, we had no knowledge of who was responsible for the acts,” Richards said Tuesday. “We had to develop a suspect on each end, in both states.”

Robert Neal Rodriguez, a part-time janitor at a Tallahasse, Fla., church, lived in a garage apartment off one of Tallahassee’s main thoroughfares.

One Friday night from a pay phone in the Midwest, Rodriguez telephoned his girlfriend in Tallahassee and confessed to the double murder that had baffled law enforcement officers in two states.

Then, Rodriquez managed to elude lawmen looking for him.

Suddenly, on a Saturday afternoon, Rodriguez’s body was found in his vehicle, which was parked at an interstate reststop on New Mexico.

A suicide note found with Rodriguez described the murders and pinpointed evidence he left behind at the scene. Investigators went to the scene, found the evidence and knew, without a doubt, they had found the murderer.

Also in the note, Rodriguez described how he had murdered a woman almost a decade earlier and buried her, clad in a swimsuit, in Wakulla County. The woman had been listed as missing during those years. Investigators found her body where her killer said they would.

Rodriguez, who wrote that he experienced uncontrollable urges to kill, had ingested cyanide. As the poison took affect, his writing trailed off the paper.

Satisfied Rodriguez was the killer, FDLE and the two sheriffs’ offices closed the case.





Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 220.