GBI: Murder charges for man who told police he shot home intruder

GREENE COUNTY, Ga. — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Greene County Sheriff's Office are investigating a deadly shooting at Reynolds Lake Oconee.

The shooting was reported just before 7 a.m. Tuesday inside a home on Jones Bluff Court.

According to investigators, a man called 911 to report that he shot an intruder in his home.

[PHOTOS: Death investigation underway at upscale home in Reynolds Plantation]

When deputies from the Sheriff's Office arrived at the home, they found a man, identified as 51-year-old Marc Dimos, dead in the basement.

“Early this morning we received a 911 call of a possible home invasion and upon deputies arrival they observed a male in the home deceased with an apparent gunshot wound,” Greene County Sheriff Donnie Harrison Jr. said.

Once Channel 2 Action News learned about the investigation, we launched NewsChopper 2 to head to the scene.

NewsChopper 2 showed officers scouring the yard of the large home for evidence as well as crime scene tape roping off a large part of the home.

Because it is a gated community, Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne and his photographer got on a boat so we could get a better look at the investigation from the ground.

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Winne learned that the man who called 911 was taken into the Sheriff’s Office for questioning.

“Obviously, physical evidence doesn’t lie and we’re going to look at that very hard and what we have from the suspect -- subject this far. We’re going to go from there,” Harrison told Winne.

“Sheriff, preliminarily, do you believe there truly was a home invasion?” Winne asked Harrison.

“At this time, we do not,” Harrison said.

The sheriff said it appears the shooter and Dimos knew each other.

On Tuesday evening, an arrest warrant for murder was issued for Chad Haufler Sr., 45, for causing the death of Dimos.

“There is, as far as we know, no other persons involved in this incident. Nobody’s on the loose, nobody’s on the run. It’s all self-contained to the residence,” Harrison said.

Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills estimated this homicide was less than a quarter mile from where a grandmother's body was recovered in the lake in 2014. Shirley and Russell Dermond's deaths have stumped investigators for years.

The home is about 2 1/2 miles from the Dermonds' house, where Russell Dermond was found dead.

Both sheriffs said they do not believe there are any connections between the two investigations.

Cox Media Group