Parents of 16 kids found
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| Fri, 07-10-2009 - 3:36pm |
Family: Kids at home during the shooting
ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WALA) - Police are investigating the deaths of a Florida couple found shot in their bedroom in what authorities are describing as a home invasion.
Escambia County Sheriff’s Deputies were called out to a home in the 9700 block of Mobile Highway around 8 p.m. Thursday.
When they arrived, deputies say they found a man and woman dead in the bedroom of their home in the Beulah community. Both had been shot.
The victims have been identified as Byrd and Melanie Billings. The couple had 16 children, 12 of them adopted.
The Billings were known for helping children with disabilities and troubled backgrounds.
Family members say all of the children were at home at the time of the shooting, but they were not hurt.
Deputies say they want to question three men in a red van about the shooting.



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Kids Safe With Relatives; Sheriff Believes People Who Killed Couple Were Experienced
This 2005 picture shows Byrd and Melanie Billings with their children, 10 adopted and two biological, at their home in Beulah, Fla. Melanie is holding a photograph of their late child, Bailey. Investigators asked the public to be on the lookout Friday, July 10, 2009, for a red van they believe carried three men involved in the deaths of the Florida Panhandle couple who were shot in their rural home while eight of their children slept.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=8063529&page=1
Police believe they have found the red van spotted at the home of a Florida couple killed Thursday as their adopted special needs children slept in the house, and authorities are questioning "persons of interest" with ties to the van.
Meanwhile, nine children who were living under the couple's care are recovering from the tragedy with relatives, a spokesman for the family said.
"They are surrounded by many family and friends," said John Markham, whose brother is married to the second oldest sister in the large family of the two victims, Byrd "Bud" Billings and Melanie Billings of Beulah, Fla., a rural area west of Pensacola, Fla., near the Alabama border.
In all, the Billings were parents of 16 children, many of them adopted kids with developmental disabilities.
"The children have not been separated nor will they be," Markham said Saturday. "They had a plan in place in the event something happening to the parents. That plan will be fully executed to the best of the family's ability."
Police had asked local residents to be on the lookout for a red, late-1970s or early-'80s model van that was seen on the Billings' video surveillance system driving away from the scene of the crime. A statement on the Escambia County Sheriff's Office said officials sought three white males spotted in the van, though police would not specify the suspects' gender in later comments.
Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said Saturday evening that tips from the public helped police find what they believe is the same van and its possible occupants.
"We are currently now are interviewing two persons of interest," Morgan said. "But again, the investigation, at this point, has been tied to the van that's in question."
Morgan said the rapidity of the crime and the video of the van suggested that the killers were experienced.
"It suggests experience to me," the sheriff said, "the rapidity of this crime -- in and out" of the couple's home.
But, he added, police "have yet to determine a reason for, specifically, why the Billings were targeted."
Police found the Billings' bodies shot multiple times after they were summoned to the sprawling house in a rural area shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday.
The well-to-do Billings raised adoptees, many born to drug-addicted mothers and some with Down syndrome, along with their four biological children from previous marriages, according to reports.
Several children -- police were quoted saying there were eight ranging in age from 8 to 14, while Markham said there were nine children living at the home ranging from 3 to 11 -- were found unharmed inside the house, some of them still asleep, authorities said. Police reportedly were responding to a 911 call by a neighbor.
Markham and the Billings' daughter, Ashely, who is married to Markham's brother, said they were certain no Billings kids were connected to the crime, and that there were no additional family members home at the time of the killing.
'Mommy and Daddy Got Shot and Killed'
The Billings owned several local businesses, including a finance company and a used car dealership, The Associated Press reported.
In a published report, the couple said they started adopting the disadvantaged kids because they wanted to give back to society for their good fortune.
"Byrd and Melanie Billings, I believe, exemplified what is good and decent in society," Morgan told reporters Friday. "It only adds to the hatefulness and senselessness of this act, and I can tell you that our community has an outpouring as I speak for the deaths of these two individuals."
Outside the Billings home Saturday, someone left balloons and flowers in memory of the parents who were killed.
A family friend, school bus driver Yvonne Hahn, told the Pensacola News Journal she raced to the home after the killings and saw some of the kids as they left the house with a relative.
"They seemed all right, but they were upset," Hahn told the paper.
"Matthew told me that he didn't have a mom and daddy anymore because his mom and dad had got shot," Hahn told ABC News affiliate WEAR-TV in Pensacola. "I told him they'll always be your mom and dad, they just won't be here right now."
This sounded hinky to me from the minute I heard of it.
Could be a hit as nowhere have I read about anything being taken.
It's terribly sad
GO NOLES!!
Police in Florida Panhandle Already Holding 4 in Slaying of Parents, As Many as 8 Could be Sought
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/14/national/main5157339.shtml?tag=cbsnewsLeadStoriesAreaMain;cbsnewsLeadStoriesHeadlines
(CBS/AP)
It was theft. :(
>"An ex-convict who taught self-defense to children. A day laborer who served prison time for killing a man in a fight. An Air Force staff sergeant attached to an elite special operations unit.
Somehow, authorities say, they ended up part of a loosely connected group of seven men charged in the shooting deaths of Byrd and Melanie Billings, a wealthy Florida Panhandle couple known for adopting children with special needs.
The suspects, some dressed as ninjas, stole a safe and other items during the break-in Thursday at the sprawling Billings home west of Pensacola. Nine of the couple's 13 adopted children were home at the time. Three saw the intruders but were not hurt. Authorities would not say what was in the safe or what else was taken."<
>""Melanie and Byrd both would give you the shirt off their back and maybe they were too trusting," said Patsy Brown, who had known Melanie Billings for 22 years. "<
From.......
They arrested the 8th person yesterday for, I believe,
GO NOLES!!
When I first read of the incident I felt so sad for the loss of this loving couple that opened their home for children in need. A terrible loss to
Sherriff Morgan also said, right now, they believe robbery was the motive, but they also have a real "humdinger" but wouldn't elaborate.
So the latest I read is that they trained for a month before the killings.
Also said the eighth guy was supposed to disable the security system, but didn't show up.
That many people can't keep a secret.
What morons, and wastes of space.
zz
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