Before Death, Ex-Deputy Admits to 1979 Killings

Florida sheriff's deputy John Greer reported his wife's death on Aug. 27, 1979, telling police he heard a "pop" and saw smoke coming from a closet before finding Jackie Greer dead inside. A little more than two months later, he reported finding the body of 25-year-old Adele Easterly, a store clerk who'd been shot in the head about five miles from his Port Charlotte home. It would be decades before Greer admitted he had in fact killed both women, per NBC News. In a Tuesday release, the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office said Greer in April 2023, while living at an extended care home in Tennessee, confessed to shooting the women. "It was determined Greer would never be well enough to stand trial," per WWSB. He died less than a year later, on March 2, 2024, at age 77.

Investigators had initially "suspected something was not right" about the death of Jackie Greer, but "there was no evidence to prove the case was anything other than suicide," per the release. Though he would go on to work in other police and sheriff's offices, Greer resigned as a Charlotte County deputy in October 1980 amid an internal investigation centering on his interactions with another woman who'd died of a possible suicide. Her husband claimed Greer had been trying to have sex with his wife, per NBC. Six years later, a friend of Easterly reported Easterly had been having an affair with a deputy believed to be Greer. The woman said he'd told Easterly his wife died in an accidental shooting after he told her he wanted a divorce, per the release. It's unclear how thoroughly investigators probed Greer as a suspect at the time.

In 2016, after authorities put out a call for information about Easterly's death, a woman who'd attended a youth program at the sheriff's office claimed Greer had repeatedly sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her, saying, "Ask them dead b----es like Adele Easterly what happens when they say no to me." The release doesn't say if Greer was questioned about that allegation before his death. He was bedridden and unable to speak for long periods, but answered in the affirmative when asked if he shot his wife and Easterly, the release notes, adding it's unclear whether the killings were accidental or intentional. Sheriff Bill Prummell said the case shows "we will always seek the truth, even when we may not like what we find." (More cold cases stories.)