He didn't only kill Michelle Jones -- who had opened her south Seminole County home to her aunt and uncle. He systematically dismembered Jones' body, removing her head and then using kitchen knives to cut on her body with the skill of a surgeon.
After remaining tight-lipped about their investigation for a year, the investigators recently revealed additional details of the slayings to the Orlando Sentinel. They are certain Brandt killed at least two other times, in South Florida, and they hope their investigation will ultimately resolve other murder cases.
The focus is on Florida, but investigators discovered that Brandt made trips across the country as well as abroad.
An FBI computer program selected the 26 slayings that are the focus of the investigation, some simply because the victims were young women, but many because there were unusual aspects to the slaying, such as mutilation.
Not a typical case
Murder-suicides are typically open-and-shut cases, and, technically, the murder case of Michelle Jones and Teri Brandt is closed. But from the minute the two veteran investigators walked into Jones' house just south of Altamonte Springs the night of Sept. 15, 2004, they knew there was nothing typical about the case.
Neither had ever seen anything like the gruesome scene.
"We had deputies getting sick," Jaynes said.
Brandt, 47, walked into the garage and climbed a stepladder. He tied a bedsheet around his neck and hanged himself.
13-year-old killed mother
News of the crime shocked Brandt's friends, neighbors and family. Everyone told of a compassionate, friendly man nicknamed Charlie who would do anything for anyone.
The first bombshell came when investigators learned Brandt, when he was 13, fatally shot his mother and tried to kill his father. It was a secret kept even from Brandt's two younger sisters, who thought their mother died in a car crash.
Brandt spent a year in an Indiana mental institution and was taken back by his father when he was released.
"I think that's when Charlie was born," Jaynes said.
Carl Brandt visited his father, Herbert, in Ormond Beach two days before the bodies of the Brandts and Jones were found. Brandt's father told investigators that, as his son was leaving, " 'Charlie hugged me like he's never hugged me before,' " Hemmert said.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-...track=mostemailedlink&coll=orl-home-headlines
Caution: This article is very detailed and Graphic