From Bryan County Sheriff ’s Office incident reports: 

Mental evaluation: A deputy was sent to I-95 around 3:53 p.m. Aug. 7 “in response to a white male subject laying in water crying.”

The report said it was possible the man had been in a crash, and the deputy found him “seated in a large puddle of water in the median of the Interstate,” with his car nearby and “perpendicular to the North and South bound roadways.”

The 30-year-old Florida man told the deputy “the ‘cult’ was after him and caused him to lose control of his vehicle,” and added the cult was trying to kill him.

There was minimal damage to the man’s car, and he told the deputy “he believed that people were after him and he had been reborn.” EMS was called and came to get the man, who agreed to go with them “for a voluntary mental health evaluation.”

Welfare check/traffic stop: Motorists called 911 around 9: p.m. Aug. 8 to report a possible drunk driver in a pickup with a Florida tag headed north on Highway 17 somewhere around Belfast Keller Road.

A deputy saw the Ford F150 headed slowly north, with a motorist in a car behind the pickup flashing his lights.

“As the F150 approached, the vehicle continued to drive slow and was straddling both lanes,” so the deputy tried to pull the pickup over, however, “The F150 continued to drive at a slow rate of speed on Hwy 17 N,” the report continued, noting the pickup finally stopped in the middle of Highway 17.

A Richmond Hill Police Department Officer helped the deputy get the pickup “to pull into the turn lane of Highway 17 North and Oak Hill Road safely.”

Shortly before that, the RHPD officer told the deputy his department had gotten a call about the driver earlier in the day, and that the man was elderly and from Florida. What’s more, the same man had been stopped by local authorities the night before this report.

The deputy talked to the driver, who “looked dazed and confused,” and had trouble putting the pickup into park. “While speaking with (the man) it was hard to understand him. He said he was traveling to Canada but was from Florida.”

Then, two RHPD officers said they’d pulled the same man over the previous night for “failing to maintain his lane and driving his vehicle on the concrete media,” the report said. “The two thought (the man) was simply tired and allowed him to get a hotel room to sleep.”

The deputy told the man he couldn’t let him drive anymore and asked if he had family near by. The man said his wife was in Florida, and the deputy had to check his phone contacts to find her information.

“(She) explained to me that she is an elderly wife with no method of transportation,” the deputy reported. “I asked (her) if her husband has Alzheimer’s, Sun-down Syndrome, or Dementia. She said he had not been diagnosed with anything. She said her husband is stubborn but knows he should not be driving.”

The woman then asked the deputy to call their son, who lives in California.

The deputy did, and learned the son was aware “of his father’s slow and diminishing mental capacity but his father had not been diagnosed with anything.”

EMS was called and checked the man out, and asked him if he would go to the hospital voluntarily. He declined. Deputies called his wife back, and was told she didn’t have the money to get the man home, but allowed authorities to get the man and his dog a room at a local motel for the night. An officer then called AAA and was able to make arrangements to get the man, his dog and truck back to Spring Hill, Florida.

The deputy asked Bryan County 911 to “get in contact with the state of Georgia Adult Protective Services, however they were unable to reach anyone,” the report said, and the deputy also tried to call APS but found out they didn’t have an on call case worker. Attempts to do the same with DFCS and Bryan County Senior Services came up empty as well.

The report said the man “seemed to be more mentally stable” while at the motel, and went to bed. His pickup was parked at the front of the motel and locked for him.

Disorderly conduct: A deputy was called to an Ellabell address around 10:29 a.m. Aug. 9 regarding threats, and when she got there she met a man “who was holding a shovel until he was instructed to put it down,” a report said.

The man told the deputy “he had been fighting people all night,” and “several people were trying to kill him.” These people were “disguised as police officers, dogs, etc.,” and all “had red eyes.”

The man asked the deputy “several times if I could see people hiding in the bushes, and under mobile homes,” the report said, adding, “(he stated) that the people took his phone, and that they were listening to him tell me what was going on. (He) informed me that he saw the tear drop of death.” While this was going on, the man “kept moving close to the shovel that he was carrying around the neighborhood,” and seemed upset the deputy couldn’t see the people he was talking about. The deputy reported she “observed (the man) going into several different yards talking and yelling at people that were not there.”

The complainant said he called 911 after the man knocked on his door and told him people were trying to kill him.

“(Complainant) stated that he called 911 as instructed by (the man) in fear that (the man) would hit him with the shovel,” the report continued. The deputy “tried talking (the man) into going home and stop scaring people, but (he) seemed to get more agitated,” and “did appear to be under the influence of an illicit drug,” so he was arrested and taken to jail.

Note: A separate incident report stated the same man was spotted at the Love’s Truck Stop in Black Creek “shirtless .. walking around, talking to himself and holding a knife.”

The deputy reported he was “very familiar” with the man, and “most recently (deputies) responded to his house and he was removing the insulation from the ceiling and walls of his house with a baseball bat and a shovel, at 5 o’clock in the morning.”

The man agreed to go with the deputy for a mental evaluation in Savannah.

Disorderly conduct, part’s 1 and 2: A deputy was called out to an Ellabell address Aug. 9 because a landlord turned off a tenant’s electricity because the tenant was behind on paying him rent. In that instance, the landlord was told he couldn’t do that and would have to go through the court system to deal with his tenant.

Not long afterward, deputies were sent back to the address, where they were told by the tenant “just as soon as deputies left the first time, (the landlord) turned the power off again and then back on, then ran inside his residence,” a report said.

A deputy then talked to the landlord at his back door. “(He) admitted to turning off the electricity just to hear (his tenant) get upset and start cussing.”

The landlord was arrested.

Traffic stop: A deputy reported Aug. 5 he saw a vehicle on Highway 280 fail to stay in its lane and going very slowly.

A traffic stop near Wilma Edwards Road ensued after the deputy “observed the vehicle cross the center line multiple times,” and he learned the woman “was released from Georgia Regional Hospital a week ago and she was on medications that she had never taken before.”

The woman agreed to take a field sobriety test, but was unable to finish it. Her father came and got her.

Damage to property: Deputies were sent Aug. 5 to a Richmond Hill address “for damage to the grass in the home owner’s yard,” a report said. The complainant said a tow truck driver came “onto his property in this wet rainy weather in an attempt to remove his vehicle by mistake. The driver backed onto the wet grass yard and then was approached by (the complainant) asking why he was backing onto his lawn ad at this time the tow truck driver realized he was at the wrong address and wrong vehicle. When the truck drove off it left deep impressions into the wet ground.”

The report said the tow truck owner “stated that they were going to fix the damaged area of the grass after the rain stops.”

Matter of record: A woman reported Aug. 5 that on that morning someone driving “an older White Chevrolet Tahoe,” followed her from Highway 119 at I-16 to her sister’s home in Pembroke and the driver “flashed his headlights at her trying to get her to stop.”

The woman said when she got to her driveway the man got out the SUV and “proceeded to scold her for speeding and threatened to have her car impounded,” the report said. The man wasn’t wearing a badge. She was told to call BCSO the next time something like that happened.

Verbal dispute: Deputies were sent to an Ellabell home around 6:17 p.m. Aug. 4 regarding an argument between a 51-yearold man and his 49-year-old girlfriend. There, they met with the man, who said “he and his girlfriend got into an argument over where their cigarettes were located,” a report said. “(He) stated that (she) got upset when she found out that their cigarettes were in his pants pocket and not in the house. (He) stated that (she) had consumed a few alcoholic beverages and that is when she gets agitated.”

So, “(he) stated that (she) began throwing objects in the yard and around the house. (He) informed me that he pepper sprayed (her) to stop her from throwing things,” and that most of the belongings were his late father’s, and he didn’t want them destroyed.

Deputies then talked to the woman, who said “she did knock over a few things, but all she wanted was a cigarette,” and “that she was trying to help (the man) clean up the property but that it was overwhelming.”

“(She) did have a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from her person,” the report continued. “(She) appeared to be extremely upset about the condition of the home and property. (She) did not appear to be upset that she was pepper sprayed.”

The woman’s daughter came to take her to her house for the night.