Deputies: Divorce led father to kill his daughter
Affidavit: Dad turns himself in, says he ‘ruined his life’
LADY LAKE — Jeremy Main’s Facebook page appeared to show a loving husband and father, with photos of him with his daughter Makenzie and posts declaring “I love my wife, my angel!”
But the stay-at-home dad, who is charged with killing his 17-month-old daughter by drowning her in the bathtub, said he did it because his wife was divorcing him, according to an arrest affidavit released Tuesday.
Jeremy Main, 38, admitted to a Sumter County deputy after he turned himself in Monday that he killed his daughter and “ruined his life,” according to the affidavit. When he arrived at the Sumter County Sheriff ’s Office substation on County Road 466 in The Villages, he was bleeding from the wrists in a failed attempt to commit suicide, the report said.
Deputies discovered Makenzie Main floating face down in bloody water in the master bathroom’s tub a half-hour earlier, the report said.
“I killed my daughter and failed to kill myself,” he told deputies, according to the report. Jeremy
Main is charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond in the Lake County Jail, sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Jones said. He originally was booked into the Sumter County Jail.
According to the arrest document, he “admitted to having marital problems with his wife,” Holly Main, 37. On Monday, Holly Main’s mother, Barbara Northcutt, of Summerfield, said there were “family issues” but declined to elaborate.
Jeremy Main’s sister, Marnee Weakley, 37, of Port Orange, was at a loss to figure out what happened.
“I totally never in a million years would guess that he would harm his children,” Weakley said.
Jeremy Main called his wife about 9 a.m. Monday at her Marion County workplace to tell her he had killed their child, deputies said. She called 911, and Ocala police alerted the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Lake deputies raced to the home on Redbud Road and busted in to find Makenzie dead. Holly Main’s two teenage daughters, who also live there, were in school at the time.
On Sunday, Jeremy Main updated his Facebook page’s cover photo to one of him holding Makenzie wet, smiling and in a bathing suit.
Other photos on his Facebook page show him donning a cat mascot head as Makenzie tugs at it, kissing her on the head as they lie in bed and getting wet together at a splash park.
Holly Main’s Facebook page mirrors her husband’s, brimming with photos of Makenzie and nice words about Jeremy Main.
But not all posts were of family life.
In 2014, more than a year before the two wed, Jeremy Main shared a link that asked, “If I got arrested, what would you think I did?”
In April, Holly Main posted an image on her page that read, “Inside every person you know, there’s a person you don’t know.”
By Tuesday, Holly Main’s Facebook account was changed to reflect her maiden name, Farrington.
Responding to an outpouring of sympathy she wrote, “I can barely talk about what’s happened right now. It’s just a constant stream of tears and emotions. … I always love you my sweet forever Baby Makenzie Moira Main.”
Weakley said she visited her brother and niece Friday. The three went grocery shopping, walked the dog and “had a dance off.”
“She loved to dance,” Weakley said.
She said Makenzie brightened rooms with her smile and left people “warm and fuzzy.”
John Spivey, executive assistant public defender for the circuit that includes Lake County, will represent Jeremy Main. He said Jeremy Main will “be psychologically evaluated shortly.”
First-degree murder carries a possible death sentence. Prosecutors will determine whether to seek the death penalty.