GBI: Deaths of Hart sheriff's in-laws appear to be murder-suicide

<p>The deaths of the mother-in-law of Hart County Sheriff Mike Cleveland and one of her daughters appear to be a case of murder-suicide, authorities said Monday.</p><p>"It appears that the daughter killed the mother and later took her own life," Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. Although that's still a preliminary conclusion, Bankhead said, "Everything we've found so far points to this."</p><p>Deputies found 80-year-old Berta Fuller and the youngest of her three daughters, Shelia Watson, inside Fuller's house about 9:30 a.m. Sunday after family members asked someone to stop by the house and check on the two women.</p><p>Authorities were initially tightlipped about what they discovered.</p><p>GBI Agent Mike Ayers said they would not release details on the deaths until autopsies are done. He would not say whether weapons were found inside the house or whether there were signs of a break-in.</p><p>Bankhead said the autopsies were under way Monday at the GBI crime lab in Decatur.</p><p>He also revealed that the doors of the home had dead-bolted from the inside, there was cash in the house and it appeared nothing had been taken.</p><p>"It might take some tests to determine exactly how the daughter died, but we think it might have been a drug overdose," he said.</p><p>He said there were some signs that the daughter had been thinking of suicide. But he offered no clues about why or what might have motivated her to commit murder.</p><p>"That's part of the continuing investigation," he said. "Right now we're just concentrating on the investigation as far as it being a murder-suicide."</p><p>Neighbors said Fuller grew up in Hartwell.</p><p>Hart County is in the Interstate 85 corridor at the Georgia-South Carolina line and includes 222 miles of shoreline on Lake Hartwell.</p>

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