In Florida, Garry Bartlett Jr. reported his father’s death, surrendered outside their home and later admitted the killing in court.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The murder case began not with a neighbor reporting gunfire or officers searching for a fleeing suspect, but with Garry Charles Bartlett Jr. calling 911 and telling a dispatcher that he had killed his father inside their Jacksonville home.
That call on Nov. 20, 2024, set in motion a 19-month legal process that ended when a Duval County judge sentenced Bartlett, now 29, to 45 years in state prison. Bartlett pleaded guilty in early May to second-degree murder with a weapon in the death of his father, 69-year-old Garry Charles Bartlett Sr. The negotiated terms guaranteed a sentence of at least 40 years and permitted a maximum of life.
The call provided officers with several pieces of information before they reached the house on Fawn Lake Drive. Bartlett said his father was dead, according to an arrest report obtained by Law&Crime. He said the gun used in the shooting was in a back bedroom and told dispatchers where to find it. He also said there was no reason to attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation because his father had already died. Bartlett was waiting in the front yard when Jacksonville sheriff’s officers arrived, police said. The available reports do not describe a standoff, chase or struggle during his detention. Officers searched him and found two small but significant pieces of evidence in one of his pants pockets: a spent 9 mm casing and a live round of the same caliber.
Inside, the first responders found a far more extensive scene. Bartlett Sr. was lying on the living room floor with multiple gunshot wounds. Fire and rescue personnel pronounced him dead. Police reported that the victim had been sitting on a couch when his son began firing, though he was found on the floor after the shooting.
Investigators counted 12 spent 9 mm casings in the living room. The number indicated repeated gunfire in a confined part of the house and was consistent with Bartlett’s later statement that he had fired many times. Public accounts do not include a complete ballistics analysis or medical examiner’s report, so they do not establish in detail how each recovered casing corresponded to a particular wound.
The handgun was in the back bedroom, as Bartlett had told the dispatcher. Officers identified it as a Springfield Armory 9 mm pistol. Police said the gun appeared to have malfunctioned after two live rounds became double-fed into its chamber. Two more rounds remained in the 20-round magazine. The publicly released account does not say when the malfunction occurred or whether it alone brought the shooting to an end.
The physical evidence showed officers where the gunfire had occurred, but Bartlett’s police interview supplied the reported chronology. After being taken to a police facility, he was advised of his constitutional rights and agreed to answer questions, according to the arrest report. He discussed both the hours surrounding the homicide and what he described as a painful history with his father.
Bartlett alleged that his father sexually assaulted him when he was a child, between the ages of 5 and 9. Police wrote that the allegations had not previously been documented. That distinction is important: The arrest report records what Bartlett said, but it does not verify the claim. The available reports do not identify a prior complaint, charge, court finding or independent witness supporting the allegation.
He also told detectives that his father had made a sexual remark about him on the evening before the shooting. According to the police account, Bartlett did not react with immediate violence. He withdrew to his room, where he listened to music and telephoned a friend. He remained there for roughly six to eight hours, telling investigators that he spent the time dwelling on what had been said.
Only later did Bartlett retrieve his handgun and enter the living room, where his father was on the couch, police said. He fired an initial series of shots. Bartlett told detectives that his father continued breathing afterward. He then fired another round, describing the act to investigators in profane terms that conveyed his intent to stop the breathing. The most graphic wording is omitted here, but the substance of the statement became a key part of the official account.
When asked for the number of shots, Bartlett did not provide a precise total. He said he fired “a lot,” the report said. Investigators’ recovery of 12 casings gave the scene a documented count of discharged cartridges, although it did not by itself answer every forensic question about the shooting.
What followed was an unusually long period before the emergency call. Bartlett said he went back to the bedroom, placed the firearm on the bed and lay down. Police reported that he remained there for another six to eight hours. During that time, no call for an ambulance was reported, and there is no indication in the reviewed material that anyone attempted first aid.
The delay means the dispatch call that began the police response came many hours after the confrontation Bartlett described. By then, he told authorities that his father was dead and directed them to the firearm. Officers’ recovery of the gun where he said it would be, along with the ammunition in his pocket and casings in the living room, tied his account to the physical scene. News of the death spread through the Deer Cove neighborhood that morning. First Coast News reported that officers responded at about 8 a.m. to the 7000 block of Fawn Lake Drive, a residential area off U.S. 1 near the Avenues mall. A neighbor described the people at the house as pleasant and private and said the killing was a surprise for the community.
The initial police report identified Bartlett Jr. as 27 at the time of the shooting. He was taken into custody and accused of second-degree murder. That charge did not require the state to prove the kind of advance plan associated with first-degree premeditated murder, but prosecutors still would have been required to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt had the case gone before a jury.
For more than a year, the matter remained a pending prosecution. Bartlett was held in pretrial detention as lawyers prepared the case. The evidence potentially available to prosecutors included his 911 statements, his interview with detectives, ammunition recovered from his clothing, the handgun, the spent casings and reports documenting the condition and location of his father’s body.
The potential issues for the defense included Bartlett’s allegations about his father and the circumstances he said preceded the shooting. The reports reviewed for this article do not show that those allegations were established as facts in court. They also do not show that Bartlett pursued a trial defense requiring jurors to decide whether his claims excused, justified or reduced his legal responsibility.
Instead, Bartlett entered a guilty plea in early May 2026. A plea is more than an agreement not to contest the evidence. It allows the court to enter a conviction without a trial after determining that the defendant understands the charge and the consequences of the decision. In Bartlett’s case, the plea left the exact length of the sentence open within an agreed range. The low end of that range was 40 years. The upper end was life imprisonment. Judge Jeb Branham was therefore not deciding between probation and prison or between a short term and a long one. The agreement ensured that Bartlett would receive a sentence measured in decades, while the judge retained authority to select a term above the minimum.
Branham imposed 45 years, placing the sentence closer to the bottom than to the top of the permitted range. Court records cited by Law&Crime also showed that Bartlett received credit for nearly two years spent in custody before sentencing. That credit recognizes time already served but does not change the stated 45-year term imposed by the court.
The available reports provide little detail about the hearing itself. They do not fully describe arguments by prosecutors and defense lawyers, statements from family members or remarks Bartlett may have made before the sentence was announced. They also do not quote Branham explaining why five years were added to the negotiated minimum. Those gaps prevent a complete account of the competing sentencing presentations.
What the public record does establish is the sequence from self-report to conviction. Bartlett contacted police, was found outside the home, gave investigators a detailed statement, remained jailed while the case advanced, admitted second-degree murder with a weapon and received a 45-year prison term.
The plea resolved Bartlett’s criminal liability but did not independently resolve every disputed part of his police interview. His claims of childhood sexual abuse remain allegations that police said had not been documented before the killing. Bartlett Sr. could not answer them, and no jury made findings about them because the case ended in a plea.
With sentencing complete, Bartlett will serve his term in the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections, subject to applicable law and any later court rulings. No successful effort to withdraw the plea or overturn the sentence had been publicly reported as of Saturday.
Author note: Last updated July 18, 2026.