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A California man accused of decapitating his parents began singing Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder songs in the wake of the horrifying incident, police body cam footage revealed.
On July 9, deputies with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office responded to a domestic assault call at a mobile home community in San Juan Capistrano.
The caller told authorities that they had received text messages from a relative containing photographs of other family members severely injured, Sergeant Matt Parrish said in the footage, which was released on Thursday.
The caller said the relatives are an elderly couple with a son that suffers from severe mental health issues and had been violent in the past. The son, later identified as Joseph Brandon Gerdvil, 41, had been the one to send the photographs.
The caller requested deputies check on elderly couple, 77-year-old Ronald Walter Gerdvil and 79-year-old Antoinette Gerdvil, at their home. Officials had received a separate call from a maintenance worker in the mobile home park claiming a bloodied man attacked him.
The man had stolen his golf cart and fled the area in an unknown direction, according to the maintenance worker.
At the residence, one officer discovered a “head on the counter,” dispatch audio revealed. In the end, deputies discovered two individuals and their family dog had been decapitated and mutilated.
Deputies then briefly pursued Joseph Gerdvil in a golf cart. At one point, the man allegedly threw a shovel at a police vehicle before trying to get away. Deputies encountered the man about three miles away from the crime scene.
A responding officer exited his vehicle and told the suspect to get on the ground multiple times, according to the body cam footage. The suspect did not comply and came toward the deputy with a metal water meter. The officer then shot the man in the stomach, right hip and near the groin.
As deputies proceeded to handcuff the man, he told them: “I love you” and “I’m sorry you’re going to have to die.” Officers called paramedics and began to provide medical aid and life-saving measures. At that point, the man requested officers “just finish me off” and “put one in my head.”
The body cam footage was from the officer who shot the man.
The deputy went to retrieve a medical kit from his police vehicle. When he returned, the suspect, who had blood all over his body, began singing “what’s love got to do with it…what’s love but a second-hand emotion” from Tina Turner’s hit song before switching to “I just called to say I love you,” by Stevie Wonder.
Gerdvil was transported to hospital in a serious but stable condition, where he remains. He has been booked into the Orange County Jail on two counts of homicide.
