Michael Brandon Townsend

DALTON, Ga. — A Whitfield County man told a 911 operator he “just lost my mind” and choked two women he shared a home with on Tanglewood Drive after one of the women ”triggered” him. 

Michael Brandon Townsend called 911 shortly after 3 a.m. Thursday and told an operator “I need to turn myself in.” When deputies arrived at 234 Tanglewood Drive N.E., Krystal Michelle Spainhour, 44, and Judy Potts, 72, were found dead in the home. Spainhour is Potts’ daughter, according to investigators.

Sheriff Scott Chitwood said in a release each female “had sustained blunt force trauma injuries to their face and suspected stabs/cut wounds to their body.”

Townsend, 39, was booked into the Whitfield County jail Thursday on charges of murder and two counts of aggravated assault. He is being held without bond.

“Honestly, I can’t even remember what she said,” Townsend said when a 911 operator called him back after the original call. “I got out of the shower and she said something to me and I just, I just lost my mind. … I can’t remember what she said to me. … It triggered me. … I would never do anything like this ever.” 

It was not said which of the victims “triggered” Townsend.

He told the operator the killings had happened earlier. 

“It’s been a couple, I’m not sure… It’s been a few hours,” Townsend said. “I’m unarmed and not irate. I lost my mind earlier.”

According to an incident report, deputies found Townsend outside of the house in the carport and he was handcuffed without incident. The deputies found blood on the kitchen floor and a woman lying on a couch with dried blood on her face and the other woman lying in a bed in the rear bedroom. 

“I laid Judy in her bed … Krystal is on the sofa in the living room,” Townsend told the dispatch operator.

Townsend said he lived in the house with the women but was not involved in a relationship with either one. He said he had worked previously with Spainhour.

“No, ma’am,” Townsend said when asked if he was related to the victims. “But they are like my family.”

According to the computer-aided dispatch report, at one point in the call Townsend said he did not want to attempt CPR, “that it was too late.”

“I couldn’t go back in there,” Townsend said at one point while waiting for deputies to arrive. “I didn’t want to see. I’m ashamed of myself right now. That’s about all I can tell you.”

Townsend was arrested in 2013 on a drug trafficking charge by the sheriff’s office. He pleaded guilty to a lesser count of possession with intent to sell and was sentenced in 2014 to 15 years on probation, according to the clerk of court’s office.