’Someone killed my family!’ Father recounts day he found family brutally beaten in Upatoi home

Police investigating the 2016 slayings of a grandmother, son and granddaughter in Columbus’ Upatoi neighborhood found a 20-pound dumbbell at the scene with each victim’s blood on it, a prosecutor told jurors Monday as testimony began in the murder trial of Rufus Leonard Burks IV.

That could be key evidence in the case as authorities have said all three victims had severe head trauma when their bodies were found the morning of Jan. 4. 2016. Two also were stabbed.

Among the first witnesses Monday was Robert Short Sr., a nurse who found his wife Gloria Short, 54; son Caleb Short, 17; and 10-year-old granddaughter Gianna Lindsey dead in his 3057 Bentley Drive home at 7:25 a.m. when he returned from working a 12-hour night shift at Northside Hospital.

His wife was face-down in a hallway, his granddaughter lay in the living room, and his son was in a closet in the home’s master bedroom. They had been bound with tape.

Prosecutors played a recording of his 8:02 a.m. 911 call. “Oh my God! Someone killed my family!” he sobbed to a dispatcher.” They’ve been tied up and beaten. Who would do this to my family? Who would do this?”

The dispatcher asked him to check to see if anyone was still alive. “I’m a nurse, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve checked them already.”

In court he recounted arriving to find the home’s garage doors open and two vehicles missing. The drop-down stairs to the attic were open and the attic light on. He saw arrows that went with a bow that had been stored in the attic. A door to the house was ajar.

He went in, and found his wife outside a hallway bathroom, her hands taped at the wrist. “I could tell by her color she had been there a while,” he testified.

Upon finding Gianna in the living room, he could tell she had been dead for some time, too, he said. He had to search the rooms, calling out his son’s name, before he noticed the open closet door in the master bedroom and saw the teen’s body, the hands taped together, the right side of the boy’s head showing severe injury.

The house was in disarray, with things strewn everywhere, he said.

The person responsible for this violence, attorneys said, was Jervarceay Tapley, then 16, whom the Shorts long had treated like he was part of their family.

Tapley was among Burks’ two codefendants, before he pleaded guilty last week to three counts of malice murder. The third suspect, Raheam Gibson, who was 19 at the time, already agreed to plead and to testify during Burks’ trial.

Robert Short said the family did not know Gibson or Burks, who was only 15 when the homicides happened, but Tapley had spent summers with the Shorts, going on vacations to Disney World, attending ball games and accompanying them on fishing trips.

He had known Tapley since he was a baby, Short said: “He lived with my wife’s brother and his grandmother off and on.”

Investigators said Tapley lived with his grandmother and Gloria Short’s brother Robert Averett on Calhoun Drive in Columbus. Averett died of a heart attack Jan. 6, 2016, after hearing about the homicides.

Whitaker in this opening statement called Tapley the “primary instigator” of the crime, telling jurors Tapley talked to Burks and Gibson the day before about “doing a lick,” meaning commit a robbery. He also recruited a fourth person Whitaker identified as Marcus Dermer, but Dermer did not join them.

They met on Calhoun Drive about 6 p.m. Jan. 3, 2016, and left for Bentley Drive on a bicycle and a moped, or motorized bike, taking Illges Road to Macon Road and turning east, Whitaker said.

The bicycle malfunctioned, so eventually they ditched it somewhere near the state driver’s license bureau on Macon Road, then took turns on the moped to “leap-frog” along, with two riding ahead before one turned back to the get the third.

Surveillance video at various locations recorded the three on their journey, Whitaker said, and a witness saw Burks about 8 p.m. that day on McKee Road, the street off Macon Road that leads to Bentley Drive.

The prosecutor said Gibson told police that when they arrived at the Shorts’ home, Tapley knocked on a window, and Caleb came to a door to let them in. Tapley attacked him and Burks ran over to help bind Caleb with tape, with some grass becoming stuck to the adhesive.

Gibson remained outside until Burks called him into the garage, where Tapley told them to leave in the Shorts’ Volkswagen Beetle with some of Caleb’s clothes and other goods they stole.

Then Tapley went back inside, Gibson told officers.

When Gibson and Burks later tried to call Tapley, they got no answer. Eventually he called them, and arranged a rendezvous in the Oakland Park neighborhood, where Tapley arrived in the Short’s 2004 GMC Envoy.

They moved all the stolen goods to the Envoy and took it to Calhoun Drive. Gibson said he went home, and did not know three people had been killed until he saw the news the next day.

The next morning, Dermer, who had spent the evening with a girlfriend, found some of Caleb’s clothes on his front porch, Whitaker said. Images of others wearing Caleb’s clothing soon appeared on Facebook.

Whitaker’s statement along with testimony from Robert Short and Shameika Averett – Gloria Short’s daughter and Gianna’s mother – delved into other items that were taken from the Shorts’ home.

They said Caleb collected Nike Air Jordans, having accumulated 12 or 13 pairs. His sister said he liked to match the shoes to his outfits. He had just got a new pair the previous Christmas, she said.

Also stolen were a PlayStation 4 gaming console and some games, which Whitaker said wound up in Burks’ possession. Robert Short said the contents of his wife’s purse were strewn out. Shameika Averett said her mother the day before had withdrawn about $600 from a bank machine.

Robert Short said the family had a box made for storing wine bottles, and they had used it to collect about $400 in coins. It was missing, too.

Whitaker said police found some of Caleb’s clothes thrown over a back fence at Tapley’s Calhoun Drive home. The two stolen vehicles were found abandoned in Oakland Park.

The cash and coins were never found, nor were the bike and moped Gibson said the trio used.

On Jan. 5, 2016, Burks sent a Facebook message to Tapley, asking whether Tapley had seen the news, and telling him to call. Tapley replied he was with his family and couldn’t call, adding, “Don’t snitch,” Whitaker said.

In her opening statement Monday, Burks’ defense attorney Jennifer Curry warned jurors they would see gruesome crime-scene photos. “They’re some of the worst images I’ve ever seen,” she said, later adding, “You can’t look at those pictures without your heart breaking.”

She asked jurors to keep an “open mind” toward her client, who was only 15 at the time, and was not inside the house when the family was slaughtered.

She said the jury would not have to figure out who did the killing.

“We know Jervarceay Tapley killed this family,” she said.

Burks is being tried on 10 counts, three counts of malice or intentional murder; three counts of felony murder for allegedly killing the three victims while committing the felony of aggravated assault; two counts of auto theft; and one count each of kidnapping and first-degree burglary.

This story was originally published February 5, 2018 at 2:21 PM with the headline "’Someone killed my family!’ Father recounts day he found family brutally beaten in Upatoi home."