Fla. Couple Who Adopted 12 Children Found Slain
Men spotted in van sought after parents of 12 adoptees, 4 birth kids shot dead.
PENSACOLA, Fla., July 10, 2009 — -- Investigators asked the public to be onthe lookout Friday for a red van they believe carried three meninvolved in the deaths of a Florida Panhandle couple, shotin their rural home while eight of their children slept.
Surveillance cameras from the home of business owners Byrd andMelanie Billings showed the presence of the van at their home inBeulah, a rural area west of Pensacola near the Alabama border,Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said. The children wereunharmed.
The sheriff's office, in requesting the public's help, releaseda enhanced but still grainy photograph of a red, 15-passenger vandating to the late 70s or early 80s.
Morgan said investigators did not know who killed the wealthy coupleknown for adopting children with developmental disabilities, manyborn to drug-addicted mothers. But they said they wanted toquestion the three men suspected of involvement in the crime.
"It would be pure speculation. We same many random acts ofviolence now. We just don't know," he said.
Investigators are also awaiting autopsy results on the couple tolearn more about the killings, he added.
Morgan said eight of the children, ages 8 to 14, were in thehome when the couple was killed and found safe. A woman who livesin an outlying building and helps care for the children calledemergency dispatchers from the home and reported the killingsThursday evening.
Authorities have said deputies had to wake some of the childrenafter they entered the home.
Investigators interviewed the children, who are now staying withrelatives, and other family members Friday, Morgan said.
The Billings had 16 children, 12 of them adopted. They married18 years ago and each had two children from previous marriages. TheBillings then began adopting children with developmentaldisabilities and other problems and shared a nine-bedroom home withthem.
In a 2005 story from the Pensacola News Journal, the couple saidthey wanted to share their wealth with children in need, but didn'timagine their family would grow so large.
"It just happened," Melanie Byrd told the newspaper. "I justwanted to give them a better life."
The story said the family's nine-bedroom home had a completealarm system with sensors and cameras in every room.
Morgan said authorities had reviewed video footage from thecameras and were using the information in their investigation.