By PAMELA GOULD
Jerry Puckett wasn't terminally ill as his family believed when he blasted his way into his former girlfriend's Fairview Beach house, killed her, nearly killed her sister and killed himself, King George prosecutor Matt Britton said yesterday.
An autopsy found no evidence macroscopically or microscopically that Puckett, 70, suffered from any form of cancer at the time of the Oct. 3 murder-suicide and arson, Britton said.
Puckett's two adult children said two days after the killings that their father had previously been treated for a melanoma and that they understood from him that he was dying of kidney and liver cancer that doctors could not treat.
"The autopsy report shows that is untrue," Britton said.
Britton released the information from Puckett's autopsy yesterday during a more than 90-minute meeting with local media after closing the case. King George Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Monty Clift attended the meeting and also provided details from the investigation.
Rita Lund, 59, met Puckett in 1992 and sometime afterward moved into his Fairview Beach home on Dauphin Landing. She also worked for his company, Puckett Brothers Construction.
The pair separated Aug. 25, and she moved five blocks away into a house on Fifth Street that she and her husband owned and that had been occupied by her sister, 57-year-old Donna "Judy" Jewell Knight.
After the separation, Britton said Puckett and Lund called the sheriff's office 22 times with various complaints.
On Aug. 31, Lund called to report that she felt her life was in danger. The next day she sought and was granted a preliminary protective order barring Puckett from any contact with her directly or through a third party, or with Knight.
At the time of his death, Puckett awaited a hearing on a charge that he had violated the order on all counts.
Clift said that in the weeks after Lund moved out, she and Knight had done their best to fortify their house because they feared Puckett.
They had gotten two-way radios to quickly contact family, if necessary.
They had installed what Clift described as "heavy gauge barrel-bolt locks" to two of their doors and placed rods in the track of their sliding glass door.
And they had armed themselves.
"Within the last month, both Miss Lund and Miss Knight had been given handguns for personal protection," Clift said.
They had kept them loaded and on their nightstands.
But they weren't retrieved the night Puckett arrived about 8:30 p.m., heavily armed and in what Britton called a "homicidal rage."
Instead, the women grabbed phones and hid as Puckett tried to shoot his way inside. Knight grabbed a landline phone and ducked into a closet; Lund took a cell into the adjacent bathroom.
Puckett fired one shot into the rear door of the house and failed to gain entry. He fired two shotgun blasts into the front door and failed to gain entry. He finally got inside by shooting the glass of the sliding door.
Puckett arrived "loaded for bear," Britton said. He came armed with a .45 caliber handgun, a 9mm handgun and a shotgun, all loaded and with extra rounds in the pockets of a green coverall he wore.
Britton repeated the medical examiner's information that Lund suffered a shotgun blast to her abdomen and a fatal shot to her forehead with the 9mm handgun. She had also been struck in the head with the .45 caliber handgun, Britton said.
Deputy Tim Lyons rescued Knight from the home after Puckett set it on fire by cutting the heating oil line to the furnace and setting the basement ablaze and then shooting himself.
Britton said Puckett had "quite an extensive criminal history" dating from 1957 to 1999, none of which occurred in King George County. Charges included grand theft auto in 1957; felony assault with a deadly weapon in Washington in 1968; a drug charge; felony and misdemeanor assault charges; and burglary and destruction of property charges in Fredericksburg in 1980.
Clift said detectives will never know why Puckett acted as he did. Britton called it "vigilantism."
Puckett had contacted the Sheriff's Office on Sept. 1 and accused Lund of "embezzling from him," Britton said. He said the allegation grew from tens of thousands of dollars the day it was first reported to hundreds of thousands of dollars the next day when it was turned over to state police.
Britton defended the actions of King George officials in handling the investigation, specifically with regard to issues of potential conflict of interests.
Because Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Jennifer Pollard is Lund's sister-in-law, King George officials referred all complaints prior to the murder-suicide to prosecutors in other counties.
Puckett's accusation that Knight shoved him at his house on Aug. 25 was to have been handled by Westmoreland prosecutor Dean Atkins. Yesterday, Atkins said a misdemeanor assault charge against Knight was in the process of being dismissed since his complaining witness was dead.
Lund's protective order was to have been handled by the Northumberland County prosecutor.
State police were investigating the embezzlement accusation both because of the potential conflict and because of the agency's expertise in such investigations, Britton said.
Yesterday, state police spokesman Sgt. Thomas Molnar said that probe was closed on Tuesday because both the accuser and the accused are dead.
Britton said any suggestion that King George County officials wouldn't openly and thoroughly investigate a case or properly handle an investigation were "ridiculous."
Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972
Email: pgould@freelancestar.com