On the morning of November 20, 2024, Garry Charles Bartlett Sr., a 69-year-old White man, was found shot to death in his Jacksonville, Florida, home. The discovery was made after his own son, 27-year-old Garry Bartlett Jr., called 911 around 8 a.m. to report the incident at their residence on Fawn Lake Drive.
Bartlett Jr. told the dispatcher that he had shot his father, that his father was deceased, and that he had placed the firearm in a back bedroom.
When officers from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office arrived, they found Bartlett Jr. waiting for them in the front yard. Inside the house, they discovered Garry Bartlett Sr. on the living room floor. He had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene.
A search of Bartlett Jr. revealed a spent 9mm casing and one live 9mm round in his pocket. At the scene, investigators recovered 12 spent 9mm casings in the living room. In the back bedroom, they located a Springfield Armory 9mm handgun on the bed, just as Bartlett Jr. had described. The weapon appeared to have misfired during the shooting.
After being taken into custody, Bartlett Jr. was charged with murder. He agreed to speak with detectives and confessed to the shooting. He claimed that the night before the killing, his father had made a threatening comment. He told investigators that he then waited for several hours in his room before getting his gun and finding his father asleep on the living room couch. Bartlett Jr. also alleged that his father had sexually assaulted him as a child, though police noted these allegations had never been documented before.
In May 2026, Garry Bartlett Jr. pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder with a weapon. The following month, a Duval County judge sentenced him to 45 years in a Florida state prison, closing the case as of June 2026.
