Kenneth Hart
The Independent
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A former Greenup County resident has been charged in the gruesome murder of a northern Florida elementary schoolteacher.
Timothy Dale Rose, 51, is accused of killing his girlfriend, 48-year-old Jan Dunn Keller, and mutilating her corpse, a crime the local sheriff called one of the most heinous he had seen in his 25-year law enforcement career.
Rose and Keller lived together in St. Augustine, Fla. Keller, who taught third grade, went missing Aug. 23 when she did not report for work.
Deputies with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Department went to Keller’s home the following day to investigate her disappearance and found her torso in the garage. It had been wrapped in a tarp, Sheriff David B. Shoar told the local media during a news conference last week.
The victim’s head, hands and feet were missing. Those were later found buried about 2 feet underground in plastic bags, in an undeveloped area near where the couple lived, according to a story on a website operated by the Florida Times-Union. The head was in one bag; the hands and feet in another.
Rose was found in the couple’s home, unconscious and with an empty pill bottle and a shotgun, the Times-Union reported. He was arrested and charged with Keller’s murder.
According to Shoar, authorities spoke to Rose on Aug. 23, after Keller’s family reported her missing. Deputies decided to go back to the residence the next day because of “a bad feeling from an earlier conversation,” he said.
A Florida TV station reported Rose had been arrested twice before for domestic violence and once for battery. The same station reported Rose appeared to be under heavy medication during his initial court appearance on Thursday.
Authorities have not determined exactly how Keller died. However, her body had signs of injury other than the dismemberment and decapitation, and Shoar said those may have led to her death, the Times-Union reported.
Rose is a former resident of Raceland and a 1977 graduate of Raceland High School. His father, the late Paul Rose, was a member of the board of education.
Raceland Police Chief Don Sammons said to the best of his knowledge, Rose had not lived in the city in years.
“He moved away from here a long time ago,” he said.
Sammons said he believed Rose still had family living in the area.
KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com.
or (606) 326-2654.
