LADY LAKE, Fla. _ Holly Main was at work in Marion County when she got a phone call Monday from her husband with horrifying news, according to a Lake County Sheriff's spokesman.
Jeremy Main, 38, called to say their 17-month-old daughter Makenzie Main was dead, Sgt. Fred Jones said.
"He had called to tell her he killed the kid," he said.
A couple of hours later, Main turned himself in at the Sumter County Sheriff's Office substation in The Villages, about 60 miles northwest of Orlando. He didn't make a confession and "it is my understanding he lawyered up," Jones said.
Jeremy Main was charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond in the Sumter County Jail.
Just after 9:30 a.m., Holly Main, 37, dialed 911 from her workplace after talking to her husband. The Ocala Police Department notified the Lake County Sheriff's Office, and deputies soon arrived at the rural Lady Lake home on Redbud Road.
"They had to bust the door in" and found Makenzie in the bathtub dead from "apparent drowning," Jones said. In the backyard, surrounded by a chain-link fence, a blue swing set was cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape.
Barbara Northcutt of Summerfield, Holly Main's mother who drove to the home, said she had been "praying for" Jeremy Main.
"He had some issues _ there were family issues," said Northcutt, declining to elaborate.
She said she was devastated to hear that her granddaughter was dead. If she saw Jeremy Main now, she would say, "How could you destroy something that loves you 100 percent?"
Jeremy Main's sister Marnee Weakley, 37, of Port Orange, was just as confused. She said she last saw her brother Friday, when they went grocery shopping with Makenzie and had a "dance off."
She said Makenzie made you feel "warm and fuzzy" and "loved to dance."
"It doesn't seem like there's any other option right now, but it's not like him ... that child was his life," she said.
Weakley said she wasn't aware of any tension between Jeremy, who was a stay-at-home dad, and Holly Main.
"I have no clue, I have no clue ... up until now he's always been my best friend, my hero," Weakley said.
Weakley was good friends with Holly Main during her school days, where Jeremy and Holly attended the same middle school. Holly Main has two kids, now teenagers, from a previous marriage. She and Jeremy Main were married July 29, 2015, according to their marriage license filed in Alachua County.
Both Jeremy and Holly Main updated their Facebook profile pictures Sunday to a photograph of Makenzie.
Diedre Holloway, 21, who lives down the street from the Mains' home, said she saw Jeremy Main walk his daughter nearly every day in a stroller.
"He usually tried to do it every day," she said. "I'm in shock _ they seemed like nice people."
Jones said the Sheriff's Office has not had any calls to the Mains' residence in the past. Jeremy Main had four traffic infractions in Lake. A state law-enforcement database showed no prior arrest record.
