On Saturday morning, Milton resident Elbert Merrick III, known to many as E.J., drove his red Jeep Cherokee to 179 Peoria Boulevard in Crestview.
According to State Attorney Bill Eddins, he was there to pick up some items belonging to his girlfriend, who was previously engaged to Jacob Langston, who lived at the address with his mother and stepfather.
At some point, law enforcement authorities say Langston shot Merrick to death in the driveway and later killed his mother, Shanna McGrath, and stepfather, Kevin McGrath, inside the home.
When police arrived on scene, the Jeep’s motor was still running, and the driver’s door was open.
Langston was arraigned Monday in Pensacola, charged with three counts of first-degree murder in a case that has shocked the HubCity.
A 2012 graduate of MiltonHigh School, Merrick enlisted in the Army in June 2011 under the Delayed Entry Program in pursuit of his dream of a military career.
“I am one of those people you need to get to know before you draw personal conclusion(s),” Merrick wrote on his Facebook page.
“I guess the most interesting thing About me is that i write a lot of short stories and poems ussaly (sic) for someone or about them,” he wrote.
Merrick wrote about his pride in being a member of the Navy Junior ROTC at MiltonHigh School, where retired Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Dyer remembered him as an outstanding cadet.
“Of all the cadets I’ve taught, he stands out in my memory for his integrity,” Dyer said on Tuesday. “He was always there when we had a community service project, and always did his best. His best was very good.”
Dyer said the school’s administrators often asked for Merrick by name when looking for cadets to help with special ceremonies like graduation.
“He was well liked and respected by his fellow cadets,” Dyer said. “He enlisted in the Army and went to boot camp, but he had some sort of medical issue and had to leave.”
Dyer said Merrick was always polite and courteous.
“It was always ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’,” he said. “He was one of our best.”
According to some of her friends, Shanna and Kevin McGrath got married not long after she retired from the Air Force in September 2013.
The pair had both grown up in Paulding, Ohio, a small community of about 3,000 people. According to the Paulding Progress, the community’s newspaper, both attended PauldingHigh School, with Shanna graduating in 1991 or ’92, and Kevin graduating in 1986 or ’87.
“I didn’t really get to know him, because they got married after she retired,” Shanna’s former co-worker Sheila Zajdel recalled. “But I know they knew each other a long time.”
After moving from Paulding to Crestview, Kevin found a job working with the maintenance crew at Rocky Bayou Country Club in Niceville in March. Wayne Phillips, the golf course superintendent, was still in shock on Tuesday as he spoke about his late employee.
“He was an excellent worker,” Phillips said. “He was very handy. Even though he had never worked at a golf course before, he was able to handle any task we gave him.”
Kevin was a “class act,” Phillips said, adding he also was always the first person to arrive at the course each day.
“He’d get there before dawn,” Phillips said. “And if there was something that needed to be done, he’d be the last one to leave.”
Although he never played golf himself, Kevin enjoyed working outdoors, Phillips said, and didn’t have any nostalgia for Ohio winters.
“He joked about how much he liked Florida weather,” Phillips recalled.
Phillips said he never heard Kevin say anything negative about anyone — especially his family.
“He only talked about his family in good, positive terms,” he said. “It was obvious he loved them.”
That love was obvious to Zajdel as well.
“I didn’t know Kevin very well, but there’s one thing I did know,” she said. “He and Shanna made each other very happy.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Friends, co-workers remember shooting victims