Second suspect arrested in Hernando double murder

BROOKSVILLE - Three months after authorities arrested a Tampa man in connection with the brutal slaying of an elderly Hernando County couple in 2006, sheriff's officials on Friday announced the arrest of a second suspect in the case.

Robert William Jardin (left), 33, of Brooksville was arrested by the Hernando County Sheriff's Office on Friday morning on two counts of murder and one count of burglary of a structure. He was being held at the Hernando County jail.

The arrest report gives this account: Detectives late last month were working on information that Jardin may have been involved in the DePalma murders when they received a tip connecting Jardin to an unrelated case. While interviewing Jardin about the other case, they brought up the murders. Jardin initially denied knowing anything about Patrick and Evelyn DePalma, who were stabbed to death in their home in remote Masaryktown.

On Thursday, detectives searched the home of a Brooksville man who was allowing Jardin to live in a motor home at his property at 6498 Zagnut Lane. While seaching the home and the motor home, authorities found several items that serial numbers confirmed had been stolen from the DePalmas' home. A further search of Jardin's 1989 Chevy pickup truck found the DePalmas' car keys and other stolen items.

Detectives interviewed Jardin again and this time he admitted that he was at the DePalmas' home at 333 Korbus Road when the couple was slain on Oct. 29, 2006 and that he had watched two other people remove stolen items from the home. He also acknowledged that he saw the two victims lying dead in a hallway. Jardin also proved details of the crime scene that had not been made public, detectives said, including the kind of weapon that had been used in the killings.

In April, deputies arrested David Alexander Bostick, 18, a distant relative of the DePalmas, on two charges of first-degree murder. Bostick told authorities that he was with two other men at the DePalmas' home and that he left to get a phone from a car. When he returned, the DePalmas were dead and one of the men was yelling at the other about controlling his temper.

Bostick said he helped the men remove items from the house, including a vacuum cleaner and a stereo. Among the items discovered at the Zagnut Lane homes on Thursday were a Bissell vacuum cleaner and an RCA stereo system.

- Times editor