Authorities in California have released video of the shooting and wounding of a man in July who they think killed his parents and the family dog in a mobile home.
The bodycam shows the suspect pleading with police to shoot him while singing Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” and Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”
Law & Crime looked at Orange County Jail records and found that Joseph Brandon Gerdvil, who will be 42 years old in October, has been in jail since July 13, four days after his parents, Ronald Gerdvil, 77, and Antoinette Gerdvil, 79, were found dead and without heads at their home in San Juan Mobile Estates in San Juan Capistrano.
Police in Orange County say that Gerdvil killed his parents that day, cut off their heads, left one on a table, and mutilated their dog before driving off in a golf cart. The police released a video with a narration and subtitles.
It started with dispatcher audio talking about a family member calling 911 to say that Gerdvil sent them texts with pictures of “elderly relatives” who looked like they were “severely injured.”
Police say the caller, a cousin, told them around 7:30 a.m. that Gerdvil had mental health problems and had been violent in the past.
The dispatcher could be heard saying that Gerdvil had also been seen with blood on his clothes, chasing a maintenance worker with a fork, and driving a golf cart near homes.
The bodycam film showed that deputies saw Gerdvil in the street about 20 minutes later.
A cop yelled, “Get on the ground right now!” as the suspect walked up with what looked like a metal water meter in his hand.
A policeman fired five times at the bloody defendant because he kept walking forward. As he fell to the ground, Gerdvil could be heard screaming “f— you!”
The defendant said “I love you” and “I’m sorry you’re going to have to die” while being put on his stomach and handcuffed by other cops.
Soon after, he asked the police to end his life right then and there.
“End it for me.” Just kill me. Make one in my head. “Please put one in my head,” he asked. “Please help me.”
Things were already very scary, but they became even scarier when the suspect started singing love songs by Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder.
“What does love have to do with it?” Gerdvil sang. “Love is just a feeling that comes from someone else.”
With even more force, he sang, “I just called to say I love you.”